• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, October 4, 2022

Companies that develop and deploy algorithms should seek consumers' permission before collecting, using or transferring their data, the White House said Tuesday in a new white paper addressing artificial intelligence (AI).

The Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, issued by the Office of Science and Technology, also says companies should not design systems in ways that “obfuscate user choice” or that “burden users with defaults that are privacy invasive.”

“Current hard-to-understand notice-and-choice practices for broad uses of data should be changed,” the agency states in the report.

The report says in a disclaimer that the recommendations are not binding guidance. Instead, the authors say the paper is “intended to support the development of policies and practices that protect civil rights and promote democratic values in the building, deployment, and governance of automated systems.”

In addition to the privacy recommendations, the Science and Technology Office says algorithms and automated systems should be designed in ways that protect people from discrimination based on factors such as race, ethnicity and sex and genetic information.

"Algorithms used in hiring and credit decisions have been found to reflect and reproduce existing unwanted inequities or embed new harmful bias and discrimination," the report states. "Unchecked social media data collection has been used to threaten people’s opportunities, undermine their privacy, or pervasively track their activity -- often without their knowledge or consent."

The White House on Tuesday also called attention to current federal initiatives that, according to the administration, “advance the Blueprint.”

Among the work highlighted by the administration is the Federal Trade Commission's “commercia l surveillance” proceeding, which could result in new online privacy regulations.