How iCIMS is leveraging its privacy program to operationalize its Responsible AI program

September 19, 2024

 

Bill O'Connor

2 min read

Artificial intelligence is evolving at an exponential pace, while new laws and regulations emerge every day. Companies that create AI-powered software are grappling with how to govern its development. Leaders must decide how to mitigate risks and uphold responsible AI standards while empowering teams to innovate on this cutting-edge technology. To strike the right balance, many organizations are turning to their privacy teams for guidance.

iCIMS also faced this balancing act — and ultimately — decided to leverage our robust privacy program to navigate the complex world of AI governance.

Why privacy teams should own responsible AI programs

There are many reasons why a privacy team is best suited to take on AI governance responsibilities. AI governance involves many of the same processes as privacy and data governance. Responsible AI principles also often explicitly refer to privacy and require general privacy principles to apply to AI systems that process personal data.

Similarly, responsible AI principles — like transparency, explainability, fairness, non-discrimination, human oversight, robustness and security — can be related to individual rights and their related provisions under privacy laws. These AI principles are often the backbone of the growing number of new AI laws and regulations, and privacy teams understand how to analyze legislative and regulatory rules and requirements and implement them across various departments within the business.

Other privacy program attributes — such as risk management, impact assessments, vendor risk management, privacy by design and technical and organizational security measures — also apply to responsible AI programs. As a result, it’s logical for a privacy team to be responsible for this work. This is why the iCIMS privacy team is primarily responsible for much of iCIMS’ AI governance.

How iCIMS scaled its privacy program to include responsible AI

At iCIMS, our privacy team leverages existing processes that the business is familiar with to meet AI governance requirements. These include our processes for risk assessments, risk management, vendor due diligence and privacy by design.

Similarly, our privacy and legal teams use existing processes to review contracts and analyze new legal requirements related to AI. We also utilize existing representation across the business, like privacy champions and governance committees, to ensure there is leadership awareness and buy-in.

Our Data Protection Officer is involved in applicable committee meetings and in assessing any potential risks to individuals. The iCIMS Privacy Operations team is primarily responsible for operationalizing AI risk management and updating applicable policies and processes to align with new legal requirements and internationally recognized standards, such as the EU AI Act, Colorado AI Act and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework.

A process customers can trust

iCIMS’ privacy team has confidently taken on the additional responsibilities of managing our Responsible AI program by using existing processes designed to uphold the highest standards for privacy and compliance.

These standards are also regularly communicated across the organization so that all teams can share in the responsibility – from product design to release.

Our customers can trust that the teams they work with are not only delivering best-in-class products but are also working diligently to create safe and secure AI experiences within iCIMS Talent Cloud.