EPIC is an ICT innovation partnership between Europe, Singapore, Australia and NZ. Their April 2019 event in Singapore outlined the challenges and solutions that lie ahead, at the intersection of AI, privacy and security.
I was invited to present on privacy, security and AI – all of which are at the heart of what we do at Eightwire. Although I enjoyed having the opportunity to present Eightwire’s view in this space, it was fascinating to hear the views of others working in this area.
The common theme from presenters was the provision of more security and privacy around the use of AI information. It was interesting to dig a little further into AI, and uncover that it is so much more than what typically comes to mind. AI is clearly used in discovering security breaches, managing cities and streamlining businesses, but there is a hidden ‘back end’ of the AI sector which was of particular interest – data logistics, synthetic data generation, biometric identification, and data exchange platforms. Managing privacy when generating synthetic data and ensuring consent is built into data exchanges were interesting topics. As a business, Eightwire is well versed in allowing organisations to manage consent on behalf of their customers.
A session highlight was Professor Yu Chein Siang, Head of Cybersecurity for the Singapore Government. He caused a stir amongst the pro-AI camp, by highlighting many poor, a few good, and a few very good AI projects. From his experience, he felt AI for cyber security doesn’t work. The times it has caught an intruder was when “they heard a noise, so they took a chainsaw to the wall. Anybody would have caught them”. AI for privacy is OK, but leadership embracing it has been very slow. AI for future smart cities has a bright future but is let down by weak leadership. It will be interesting to see how this changes in the future as the EU, Singapore, Australia and NZ all look to balance the benefits of AI with the privacy and security concerns.
Did you know?
The words for safety and security are the same in the German language.
This adds another layer to the importance of data security for citizens.
