A critique of current approaches to privacy in machine learning

Abstract

Access to large datasets, the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the ease of collecting personal data, have led to significant breakthroughs in machine learning. However, they have also raised new concerns about privacy data protection. Controversies like the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal highlight unethical practices in today’s digital landscape. Historical privacy incidents have led to the development of technical and legal solutions to protect data subjects’ right to privacy. However, within machine learning, these problems have largely been approached from a mathematical point of view, ignoring the larger context in which privacy is relevant. This technical approach has benefited data-controllers and failed to protect individuals adequately. Moreover, it has aligned with Big Tech organizations’ interests and allowed them to further push the discussion in a direction that is favorable to their interests. This paper reflects on current privacy approaches in machine learning and explores how various big organizations guide the public discourse, and how this harms data subjects. It also critiques the current data protection regulations, as they allow superficial compliance without addressing deeper ethical issues. Finally, it argues that redefining privacy to focus on harm to data subjects rather than on data breaches would benefit data subjects as well as society at large.