Big Data and the Future of Belligerency: Applying the Rights to Privacy and Data Protection to Wartime Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

The race for military AI is in full swing. Militaries around the world are developing and deploying various AI applications including tools for the advancement of surveillance, command and control structure, logistics management, and automated decision-making in battle.

A review of the roles that the rights to privacy and data protection play in regulating these emerging wartime military technologies is long overdue. This is especially true considering the growing involvement of private technology contractors in these projects, who bring with them not only large sets of structured and unstructured personal data, but also problematic commercial practices as to how to utilize that data. In the process new questions emerge about the ability, let alone desire, of the government to adequately protect international human rights, civil liberties, and digital freedoms in the production of these new technologies.

This book chapter addresses the limits of existing IHL and IHRL regulation of AI development and deployment. It further discusses the dangers of an under-regulated military AI ecosystem, focusing particularly on the risks of data pollution from an unchecked military industrial tech complex. The chapter concludes by proposing certain suggestions for the path forward in advancing a rule-based order for the new AI arms race.

Keywords: Human Rights, Humanitarian Law, IHL, IHRL, Laws of War, Artificial Intelligence, AI, Military, National Security, Privacy, Data Protection, Digital Rights, Corporate Governance

JEL Classification: K33