Researchers in Germany consider the widespread assumption that less data protection leads to more innovation to be empirically unfounded. They see no general drop in innovation caused by the European data protection regulation. The problem lies elsewhere: large corporations adapt, while smaller companies carry the effort and the uncertainty.
One proposal stands out for mid-sized firms. Vendors of standard software should carry more responsibility. That hits the core, because a mid-sized company rarely builds its own protection mechanisms. Retention periods, access logs or the masking of sensitive data come with the software it uses.
For AI projects, we therefore recommend checking protection features when choosing tools and starting with data that has no personal reference. Well-implemented data protection then becomes an argument with customers rather than a brake.