Ivana Bartoletti, global chief privacy officer at Wipro, on why digital privacy is linked to equality, the fear whether AI will take our jobs in the future, and why companies bringing innovation in AI along with governance will have a global competitive advantage
Ivana Bartoletti, Global chief privacy officer at Wipro
Â
The link between gender, equality, human rights and digital privacy became clear to Ivana Bartoletti very early on in her career, which is why she decided to bring together legal knowledge of human rights and the technical knowledge of information security and coding. She has a master’s in human rights law from London Metropolitan University and started her career working in the human rights space, before focussing on responsible technology, AI and digital privacy. Bartoletti, global chief privacy officer at technology company Wipro, speaks with Forbes India about why we need people from different backgrounds working in artificial intelligence (AI) and privacy because it’s increasingly becoming not just about the technology, but also about a part of ourselves as individuals. While AI can be transformational in improving accessibility, there is need to correct biases in AI, and companies, government and consumers each have their role to play. Edited excerpts:
Â
Q. You’ve made a transition from a human rights background to working with privacy issues, and you say that privacy is linked to equality. Can you elaborate? Â
I started in the human rights field, very much sort of women’s rights really. And something about data really interested me, especially around the power of data collection. There was a time when we thought data was neutral and it can inform us about the world. But in reality, data is not neutral. It is a picture of society, right? And even what you decide to collect and what you decide not to collect is a choice that you make. So to an extent, the link between equality, gender, human rights and the digital became quite clear to me. For example, if you take the medical field, a lot of women say that when they go to the doctor, what they experience is often not recognised. That is because a lot of data collected about diseases, especially heart diseases, has been collected by men. So to me it became quite clear that there is a strong link between the power around data collection, and gender and equality. That’s where I started to study all of it, bringing together the legal knowledge of human rights and the technical knowledge of information security and coding. That’s how both things merged together. Â