Artificial Intelligence and Personal Data

In November 2021, during the 41st General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which the undersigned had the privilege of attending, the 193 Member States of UNESCO unanimously approved the “Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence”. This Recommendation thus became the first global standard on the subject, after a long, hard and finally celebrated debate. Important and laudable efforts had previously been made by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), with the adoption of the “OECD Principles on Artificial Intelligence”, but with lesser scope, given its more limited membership, compared to UNESCO.

More recently, in February 2024, UNESCO’s “Second Global Forum on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence” was held in Slovenia, with government officials, experts, academics and representatives of companies, foundations and civil society organizations. The purpose of the meeting was to follow up on the Recommendation and address the challenges that remain in the implementation of its common values and principles, which are intended to guide the establishment of a legal basis necessary to ensure the ethical and sustainable development of artificial intelligence.

The benefits of artificial intelligence have been well demonstrated in areas such as medicine, climate change and poverty reduction. However, if misused, it also poses risks and threats in areas such as privacy and human rights in general. In this sense, the UNESCO Recommendation seeks to guarantee individuals greater protection, ensuring access, knowledge, protection and control of their personal data, including the possibility of deleting them.

In El Salvador, although this right to “informative self-determination” and the action of habeas data have been recognized by jurisprudence, we still do not have a personal data law that develops it in a general way. There is only a scattered regulation in normative bodies such as the Law of Access to Public Information, the Law of Electronic Signature, the Law of Consumer Protection and the Special Law against Computer and Related Crimes, among others, which deal with privacy issues and the use of personal data.

Now that El Salvador is firmly moving forward in a process of digital transformation, with new regulatory frameworks such as the Law for the Promotion of Innovation and Technological Manufacturing, which promotes precisely the development of artificial intelligence, there is a new opportunity to resume the approval of an appropriate law on personal data. In this regard, the UNESCO Recommendation should be a valuable and vital input.