Azure AI Services - Privacy

Introduction

Azure AI Services provide powerful tools for building intelligent applications. However, it's crucial to understand how these services handle data and adhere to privacy best practices. Microsoft is committed to responsible AI development and deployment, focusing on transparency, accountability, and user control.

This page outlines key considerations for privacy when using Azure AI Services. We cover data governance, responsible AI principles, and available tools to help you build privacy-preserving applications.

Data Governance and Responsible AI

Data Residency: Azure offers various regions where you can deploy your AI services. Choose a region that aligns with your data residency requirements and complies with relevant regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA).

Data Minimization: Collect and process only the necessary data for your AI applications. Avoid gathering extraneous information that isn't directly related to your intended use case.

Responsible AI Principles: Microsoft's Responsible AI principles guide our development and deployment of AI services. These include:

• Fairness: Strive to mitigate bias in AI models.
• Transparency: Provide clear explanations of how AI models work and their limitations.
• Accountability: Establish clear lines of responsibility for AI systems.
• Safety & Security: Implement robust security measures to protect data and prevent misuse.

Tools and Resources

Azure Purview: A data governance service that helps you discover, classify, and understand your data across your organization. Learn More.

Differential Privacy: A technique for adding noise to data to protect individual privacy while still allowing for meaningful statistical analysis. Explore the Azure AI services offering support for differential privacy. Learn More.

Azure Cognitive Search: Allows you to index and search data, with options for anonymization and pseudonymization. Explore Cognitive Search.