Why Privacy Matters

  • Protect rights and expectations: Respects individuals’ control over personal information across collection, use, sharing, and deletion.
  • Minimize and purpose-limit: Collects only what is necessary and uses it solely for defined, lawful purposes with clear retention rules.
  • Security alignment: Pairs strong access control and safeguards with privacy-preserving techniques to limit exposure and misuse.
  • Regulatory assurance: Reduces breach and compliance risk through documented notices, choices, and auditable processing records.

When Privacy Is Missed

Clearview AI built a facial-recognition database by scraping billions of images from the public web without consent, raising profound privacy concerns and legal challenges. The episode shows how ignoring data minimization, consent, and disclosure can erode trust and trigger regulatory action.

Privacy Inter-Driver Relationship List

The following table summarizes the 14 privacy related, inter-driver relationships. The full 105 relationships can be viewed here:

Note: The convention when displaying drivers Ds vs. Dt, is to display the first driver alphabetically as Ds.

Drivers Relationship Explanation Example
Inter-Pillar Relationships
Pillar: Ethical Safeguards
Fairness vs. Privacy Tensioned Tensions arise as fairness needs ample data, potentially conflicting with privacy expectations (Cheong, 2024 ) Fair lending AI seeks demographic data for fairness, challenging privacy rights (Cheong, 2024 )
Inclusiveness vs. Privacy Tensioned Privacy-preserving techniques can limit data diversity, compromising inclusiveness (d’Aliberti et al., 2024 ) Differential privacy in healthcare AI might obscure patterns relevant to minority groups (d’Aliberti et al., 2024 )
Bias Mitigation vs. Privacy Tensioned Bias mitigation can conflict with privacy when data diversity requires sensitive personal information (Ferrara, 2024 ) Healthcare AI often struggles to balance privacy laws with the need for diverse training data (Ferrara, 2024 )
Accountability vs. Privacy Tensioned Accountability can conflict with privacy, as complete transparency might infringe on data protection norms (Solove, 2025 ) Implementing exhaustive audit trails ensures accountability but could compromise individuals’ privacy in sensitive sectors (Solove, 2025 )
Cross-Pillar Relationships
Pillar: Ethical Safeguards vs. Operational Integrity
Governance vs. Privacy Tensioned Governance mandates can challenge privacy priorities, as regulations may require data access contrary to privacy safeguards (Mittelstadt, 2019 ) Regulatory monitoring demands could infringe on personal privacy by requiring detailed data disclosures for compliance (Solow-Niederman, 2022 )
Privacy vs. Robustness Tensioned Achieving high privacy can sometimes challenge robustness by limiting data availability (Hamon et al., 2020 ) Differential privacy techniques may decrease robustness, impacting AI model performance in varied conditions (Hamon et al., 2020 )
Interpretability vs. Privacy Tensioned Privacy constraints often limit model transparency, complicating interpretability (Cheong, 2024 ) In healthcare, strict privacy laws can impede clear interpretability, affecting decisions on patient data (Wachter & Mittelstadt, 2019 )
Explainability vs. Privacy Tensioned Explainability can jeopardize privacy by revealing sensitive algorithm details (Solove, 2025 ) Disclosing algorithm logic in healthcare AI might infringe patient data privacy (Solove, 2025 )
Privacy vs. Security Reinforcing Both privacy and security strive for safeguarding sensitive data, aligning objectives (Hu et al., 2021 ) Using encryption methods, AI systems ensure privacy while maintaining security, protecting data integrity (Hu et al., 2021 )
Privacy vs. Safety Tensioned Balancing privacy protection with ensuring safety can cause ethical dilemmas in AI systems (Bullock et al., 2024 ) AI in autonomous vehicles must handle data privacy while addressing safety features (Bullock et al., 2024 )
Pillar: Ethical Safeguards vs. Societal Empowerment
Privacy vs. Sustainability Tensioned Privacy demands limit data availability, hindering AI’s potential to achieve sustainability goals (van Wynsberghe, 2021 ) Strict privacy laws restrict data collection necessary for AI to optimize urban energy use (Bullock et al., 2024 )
Human Oversight vs. Privacy Tensioned Human oversight might collide with privacy, requiring access to sensitive data for supervision (Solove, 2025 ) AI deployment often requires human oversight conflicting with privacy norms to evaluate sensitive data algorithms (Dubber et al., 2020 )
Privacy vs. Transparency Tensioned High transparency can inadvertently compromise user privacy (Cheong, 2024 ) Algorithm registries disclose data sources but risk exposing personal data (Buijsman, 2024 )
Privacy vs. Trustworthiness Reinforcing Privacy measures bolster trustworthiness by safeguarding data against misuse, fostering user confidence (Lu et al., 2024 ) Adopting privacy-centric AI practices enhances trust by ensuring user data isn’t exploited deceptively (Lu et al., 2024 )