  The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union regulation
that will replace the existing Data Protection Directive on 25 May 2018. The
most significant change is a huge increase in the maximum fine that can be
levied for breaches of the regulation. Yet fewer than half of UK companies are
fully aware of GDPR - and a number of those who were preparing for it stopped
doing so when the Brexit vote was announced. A last-minute rush to become
compliant is therefore expected, and numerous companies are starting to offer
advice, checklists and consultancy on how to comply with GDPR. In such an
environment, artificial intelligence technologies ought to be able to assist by
providing best advice; asking all and only the relevant questions; monitoring
activities; and carrying out assessments. The paper considers four areas of
GDPR compliance where rule based technologies and/or machine learning
techniques may be relevant: * Following compliance checklists and codes of
conduct; * Supporting risk assessments; * Complying with the new regulations
regarding technologies that perform automatic profiling; * Complying with the
new regulations concerning recognising and reporting breaches of security. It
concludes that AI technology can support each of these four areas. The
requirements that GDPR (or organisations that need to comply with GDPR) state
for explanation and justification of reasoning imply that rule-based approaches
are likely to be more helpful than machine learning approaches. However, there
may be good business reasons to take a different approach in some
circumstances.
