Lead image for New data guidelines good for consumer protection.
The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) recently published a set of guidance notes on the use of emerging technologies including artificial intelligence (AI) and privacy enhancing technologies such as encryption.
The guidelines come at a time when the adoption of these technologies is growing significantly, particularly in the private sector where investment in digital technologies has been rising in recent years.
In its guidance note on AI the ODPC acknowledges that the nature of AI systems introduce new data protection challenges that existing regulations do not fully address.
This includes the opacity of algorithmic models, the risk of discrimination from biased training data, the reduction of human oversight and the generation of predictions about data subjects without their input among others.
The guidelines are thus meant to introduce an additional layer of regulations aimed at protecting Kenyans and are a welcome development, even as some would argue they should have come sooner.
AI use has been deployed for years in the country to create consumers’ credit scores, read through employment resumes, diagnose diseases and develop hyper-targeted advertising and entertainment content.
The guidelines apply to both public and private entities that develop AI systems trained on personal data, produce recommendations or decisions based off of this data or use these technologies in automated decision-making.
They are also based on existing regulations including the Data Protection Act and the Data Protection (Registration of Data Controllers and Data Processors) Regulations and thus extend protections introduced in 2019.