How AI Uses Our Data: An Overview

PRESENTATION 👩🏼‍🏫 As AI creates demand for consumer data, our ability to reasonably consider what we share can be hampered by a lack of understanding about how the data is actually used...

I recently created a presentation explaining the very specific ways that AI uses data and how AI innovation changes the risk profile of information we previously thought of “low risk.” The link below will take you to the slides outlining what data is most in-demand now for AI, and why we need to think of privacy risk differently.

Here’s an example:

Privacy Considerations for the Yearbook Then and Now

In, say 1995, you would expect:

• Photos were seen by a few hundred people (at most)

• To observe an image would require the physical possession of a book

• Images were generally low-resolution and difficult to reproduce

• There was, of course, no way to automate identification

Now in 2025, the landscape has changed:

• Photos can be digitized and processed with facial recognition technology

• Images can be combined with a name to create a persistent identifier

• High-quality images are valuable to train age-progression algorithms

• Images can be matched to social media profiles to create behavioral overview

• Emotiona…