User Consent
The process of obtaining and recording explicit permission from individuals before collecting, processing, or using their personal data in AI systems.
Definition
A legal and ethical requirement implemented via clear consent dialogs, granular consent options (e.g., analytics vs. personalization), and immutable logging of granted consents. Governance mandates periodic consent renewals, easy opt-out mechanisms, and mechanisms to honor consent withdrawal (data deletion, processing cessation). Consent records must be auditable and tied to data-access controls to enforce user preferences in all pipelines.
Real-World Example
A fitness-app prompts new users with checkboxes for “Health Analytics” and “Social Sharing.” Selected options are stored in a consent ledger. If a user later withdraws consent for analytics, the system automatically excludes their data from model-training pipelines and logs the change for audit.
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