On the one hand, advocates of artificial intelligence and machine-learning are telling anyone who will listen that the future is here and if you’re not using AI to choose what clothes to wear, you’re going to left in the dust. On the other, sceptics tell you that we’re in the opening scene of a dystopian nightmare, and soon the only person left is going to be Vincent Price / Charlton Heston / Will Smith (delete according to preference), picking through the remains of human society.

And you’re just a regular DPO or IG professional trying to work out how this affects your role. I’m here to help. The aim of this course is to demystification and hype-popping. I’m not here to sell you the benefits of AI or to dissuade you from using the technology. Someone in your organisation is going to be seduced by some iteration of AI and you’ve probably got a senior manager bug-eyed with excitement about the efficiencies allegedly offered by ChatGPT: this course is designed to give you the confidence to weigh up the GDPR implications of using AI and other associated machine-based processing. AI and automated processing are not the same thing, but the problems they represent are closely related, so we’ll be looking at both.

The robots are coming: better get ready.

Course includes:

• What does ‘artificial intelligence’ mean in the context of personal data processing?

• What is the difference between AI, machine learning, automated decisions, and profiling (in the GDPR sense)?

• How is it used to process personal data? What questions are you likely to face?

• Who is the controller for an AI system and how do you work that out?

• Carrying out an impact assessment on AI initiatives and products

• The risks of open source AI – what does recent European action on AI tell you?

• Specific issues: Microsoft Copilot, deepfakes, Jeremy Hunt’s announcement in the Budget

• What rights do people have over AI / automated processing?

• Identify significant risks and notable good practice

• ICO guidance and checklists: are they any help? What is the role of their Innovation Advice Service?

• UK Government policy on the use of AI and how it might affect you

• Relevant proposed changes in the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill

• Emergency plan when someone introduces AI-based processing without telling you

• What are the most appropriate and obscure AI movie references for the presentation to senior management you will inevitably have to make at some point?