How AI Can Help in Personal Data Protection and Privacy

Artificial Intelligence is transforming every industry as we speak and it has the potential to grow further beyond our imaginations to benefit the world in numerous ways. From smart home and automation systems to personalized recommendations and chatbots, AI has already spread into almost all aspects of our life. The technology is enjoying rapid expansion and success, and data collection is one of the key contributors to that.

AI technology works by collecting data, and as it develops further, it will need to amass more variety of information and data. While this is essential for the AI systems to function flawlessly, a massive amount of information stored in the databases can pose a risk of security breaches as well. AI may prove to be double-edged sword in ‘AI and data protection’ realm. Yet the interesting thing about AI is that it can help to mitigate all the potential privacy risks and data protection concerns too.

Many enterprises have started to adopt different ways to use Artificial Intelligence to protect their sensitive as well as personally identifiable data already. This can be done by using big data, AI, and machine learning together for identifying cyberattack patterns and finding ways to bolster data security. AI and machine learning can analyze the previous attacks, understand how hackers find ways to penetrate into the network, and flag suspicious activities in real-time to thwart cybercriminals. Corporate Compliance Insights suggests that by the end of 2024, privacy regulations are expected to cover three-quarters of the global population. And Gartner predicts that large organizations’ annual budgets for privacy are anticipated to exceed $2.5 million. This reflects a growing commitment to data privacy in response to expanding regulatory requirements and the increased use of AI​.

The Role of AI in the Protection of Data

AI has taken endpoint security measures to the next level by quickly analyzing, detecting, and blocking cyberattacks based on an extensive behavioural study. Detecting cyber attacks usually rely on patterns. AI can prove to be very useful in studying existing data to recognize similar and familiar patterns in new data.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning can alert the network admin or user as soon as it detects an anomaly or unusual behaviour when running an application or service in the system or network. It can also block malicious websites, suspicious actions, and unauthorized data transactions automatically before they are executed. Besides, AI can also help to roll back quickly to an earlier secure endpoint in case of a security breach.

Experts say that AI-enabled data privacy mainly affects three areas in privacy and data management.

1. Privacy Concierge

AI systems work as a “privacy concierge” for the network infrastructure to identify, redirect, and process privacy data requests much faster when compared to doing it manually. AI tools can also handle complex data requests more efficiently while keeping the costs affordable.

2. Data Classification

AI is seen to be highly efficient in classifying data and managing it in an organized way. This also means that AI systems can swiftly review the existing business data as a central management unit and update privacy standards as needed.

3. Sensitive Data Management

AI can handle and process sensitive data requests all by itself, which prevents it from falling into the wrong hands. This also eliminates the chances of human errors in industries that look to include an additional layer of privacy for their data.

AI systems can efficiently analyze and use data for various purposes, but they remain impervious to the implications of the data. This is why the implementation of AI tools is believed to be more effective in managing a huge volume of sensitive data as well as making the network and system more secure.

AI for Better Protection from Phishing and Malware

The appropriate use of AI-driven data security measures can also help to prevent phishing and malware attacks. AI tools can quickly identify the suspicious links in a phishing email by scanning the messages thoroughly. This includes the message content, attachments, links, metadata, as well as the sender of the email. Any signs of threat will trigger an alert and issue a warning to protect your network and systems from the phishing attack. Some AI and machine learning tools can even analyze the message context and determine the relationship between the subject and the content. Such behavioural analysis measures can help businesses to fight cyberattacks related to phishing and social engineering effectively.

Machine learning and AI are also capable of identifying malware, ransomware, and advanced persistent threats. They can easily analyze large amounts of historical data and generate predictive patterns of cyberattacks. AI can also help to develop a countermeasure for the threats as soon as it senses an abnormal pattern. That is why many enterprises use AI and machine learning for real-time analysis and monitoring of user data workflows. This helps to develop more robust intrusion-detection systems so that the network admins can identify attacks and respond to them immediately.

Conclusion

The dynamic duo of AI and data protection is revolutionizing the digital landscape, enhancing both privacy and security by leveraging advanced technologies to manage risks and comply with evolving regulations. AI-driven tools for data protection and security can greatly help businesses to ensure better privacy for their sensitive data. Technologies like Natural language Processing (NLP) can help reduce the administrative burden off compliance managers and technologies like intelligent face recognition can enable efficient and accurate identity management. AI systems can be beneficial for monitoring and protecting all kinds of personal data, which further helps the organization to ensure that their security measures comply with all the privacy standards and regulations of the industry. AI is emerging as a strong technology ally for enterprises in terms of ensuring high-end data protection and privacy.

How 10xDS can help?

Being an emerging technologies solutions provider and consulting company, we have a strong AI and Cybersecurity team with us to help organizations with the perfect AI technology adoption and cybersecurity practices to accelerate growth and fortify cyber defences, respectively.

Talk to our experts to learn more about how AI can help in identifying potential threats and protect your sensitive data.