Washington CNN —US companies may find themselves under federal scrutiny if they “quietly” try to funnel customers’ personal information into training artificial intelligence models, the government warned this week.
The warning by the Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s top privacy and consumer protection agency, highlights the enormous value of Americans’ personal data.
“You may have heard that ‘data is the new oil,’” the agency said, referencing an adage describing the way personal information is a critical input powering the machinery of Big Tech.
“There is perhaps no data refinery as large-capacity and as data-hungry as AI.”Many companies disclose how they use customer or user information in their privacy policies.
But simply updating a privacy policy to say that a company will now use personal data collected for other purposes to train AI isn’t transparent enough and could violate the law, the FTC said.
Persons:
“, Gary Gensler
Organizations:
Washington CNN, Federal Trade Commission, Netflix, Big Tech, FTC, Securities and Exchange Commission