This week I had the good fortune to attend the IAPP's two-day Leadership Retreat in beautiful Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The artificial intelligence-focused event brought together experts in privacy and AI to have what I think we all agreed was some much-needed discussion about the intersect between AI and privacy.
Canadian experts at the retreat this week included Surdas Mohit who is director of AI and data policy at the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, Justine Gauthier who heads up legal at Mila, the Quebec AI institute, and who has joined the IAPP's AI Governance Advisory Board, and Khaled El Emam, whose company uses generative AI to create synthetic data to solve privacy challenges. And let's not forget that J. Trevor Hughes, CIPP, is Canadian too! So, I'm happy to say we represented among this international group.
Anyway, a huge thanks to the IAPP. They were smart to gather us in such a creative setting (we were in a really cool blues and jazz club) and to create a truly compelling and engaging agenda.
What we are hearing is that countless organizations are using or considering AI to enhance their work and to solve really important problems. And that in many cases, oversight of these AI projects is being handed to the chief privacy officer. While we can argue that there are elements of AI that don't involve privacy, there's no question that when it comes to doing it in a way that respects people's rights, privacy is quite central.
I've come away from this week's conversations realizing how much keeping up on this issue is vital to our profession, so I'm glad and grateful that our association is in this space and that it is building training and certification to support us.
I know we still have a while yet before proposals are due for the 2024 Privacy Symposium in Canada, but leading up to that I would love to hear from you as to what your needs are as a privacy pro when it comes to AI.
OK, now that our bellies are full of lobster, I'm gearing up for a hopefully-not-too-smoky time back in the National Capital.
Catch up on this week's privacy news and have a great weekend everyone.