Data Minimization As a Foundation for Ethical AI Development: Navigating Global Legislative Convergence and Cultural Tensions

The relationship between data and artificial intelligence (AI) presents one of the most compelling paradoxesData paradoxAI development of our technological age. As discussed in Chapter 4, while conventional wisdom suggests that more data invariably leads to better AI performance, this assumption is increasingly at odds with fundamental principles of privacy, fairness, and sustainable technological development. The doctrine of data minimization—collecting and processing only the personal data that are necessary, relevant, and limited to the purposes for which they are processed—emerges not as a constraint on AI innovation, but as its essential foundation.