Innovation in the Data Privacy Era

Join swissnex San Francisco and The Hive for a discussion of privacy and innovation.

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) has gone into effect January 1st 2020. The law is likely to have a far-reaching impact on the tech world, especially in categories like AI (Artificial Intelligence). Under CCPA, a company must disclose to customers all the information that has been collected on them well as the data shared with third parties. CCPA has been modeled on the GDPR, or at the very least strongly influenced by the GDPR. That said, there are also major differences. The GDPR is an attempt to unify data protection laws of all EU Member States and regulate businesses of all sizes that are established in the EU or targeting individuals located in the EU.

CCPA will have important effects on the ability of companies to use analytics for automated decision-making, personalization, and sophisticated prediction techniques. It’s also worth noting that inferences generated by machine learning models can fall within the definition of personal information, and therefore become regulated under the CCPA. The law also entitles individuals to see the specific inferences that have been made about them - including predictions or categorizations related to a person’s behavior, attitudes, psychology, intelligence or abilities.

Data has been a key driver of business innovation over the last decade; accelerated by the proliferation of smart-phones and cloud computing. Many Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications gather or process consumers’ personal information for various purposes. The advent of data privacy regulation regimes like GDPR and now CCPA is expected to limit the purposes of usage of user data and rein in the previously unfettered utilization of data for business innovation. We’re expecting a steep learning curve for companies adhering to CCPA regulations. Our panel of Legal Counsels and Data Privacy Officers from some of the most innovative enterprises in the Bay Area will explore the defining characteristics of business innovation under data privacy regimes over the next few years.