With privacy law reform looming, a significant proportion of businesses in Australia are not ready to comply with new rules surrounding the use of customer data and AI, a report by trust management platform company, Vanta has found.
Less than one-third (28%) of Australian businesses say they currently comply with existing regulation around using customer data to train AI, while less than one in four (24%) say they only use anonymised customer data to train AI.
More worryingly, Australian organisations find themselves behind the curve compared to organisations around the world when it comes to AI best practice. Only around half (54%) of Australian businesses say they have a formal policy governing the use of AI (lower than the UK by 11 percentage points) and only half have a dedicated team to oversee AI security and compliance — 13 percentage points fewer than those in the UK and 9 percentage points fewer than those in the US.
Vanta general manager for Asia Pacific, Jonathon Coleman said, “AI has the potential to completely transform the way businesses work, but it comes with a significant amount of risk as well. For example, using customer data to train AI could lead to AI hallucinating or worse, resurfacing personal information inadvertently or damaging customer trust.
“Soon, even more stringent regulation will be in place that forces organisations to take measures to protect their customers’ data and use AI safely and ethically. The issue, though, is that proving compliance with regulation has historically been a headache — it has taken considerable time and effort to put effective measures in place, gather documentation and present it in a way to authorities that meets their high standards.
“The good news, though, is that while AI can be the problem, it can also be the solution. AI can now automate up to 85% of compliance processes, saving organisations a huge amount of time and money to focus on what they do best. Once you can prove compliance, you start to foster greater trust with your customers.”