On Wednesday 13th March 2024, the European Parliament approved the text of the harmonised rules on artificial intelligence, the so-called “Artificial Intelligence Act” (AI Act). Agreed upon in negotiations with member states in December 2023, the Act was endorsed by MEPs with 523 votes in favour, 46 against and 49 abstentions. It aims to “protect fundamental rights, democracy, the rule of law and environmental sustainability from high-risk AI, while boosting innovation and establishing Europe as a leader in the field.” Despite Brexit, UK businesses and entities engaged in AI-related activities will still be affected by the Act if they intend to operate within the EU market. The Act will have an extra territorial reach just like the EU GDPR
The main provisions of Act can be read here. In summary, the Act sets out comprehensive rules for AI applications, including a risk-based system to address potential threats to health and safety, and human rights. The Act will ban some AI applications which pose an “unacceptable risk”, such as real-time and remote biometric identification systems like facial recognition, and impose strict obligations on others considered as “high risk”, such as AI in EU-regulated product safety categories such as cars and medical devices. These obligations include adherence to data governance standards, transparency rules, and the incorporation of human oversight mechanisms.
Next steps
The Act is still subject to a final lawyer-linguist check and is expected to be finally adopted before the end of the legislature (through the so-called corrigendum procedure). It also needs to be formally endorsed by the Council of Europe.
The Act will enter into force twenty days after its publication in the official Journal, and be fully applicable 24 months after its entry into force, except for: bans on prohibited practises, which will apply six months after the entry into force date; codes of practise (nine months after entry into force); general-purpose AI rules including governance (12 months after entry into force); and obligations for high-risk systems (36 months after entry into force).
Influence on UK AI Regulation
The EU’s regulatory approach will impact the UK Government’s decisions on AI governance. An AI White Paper was published in March last year entitled
“A pro-innovation approach to AI regulation”. The paper sets out the UK’s preference not to place AI regulation on a statutory footing but to make use of “regulators’ domain-specific expertise to tailor the implementation of the principles to the specific context in which AI is used.” In January 2024, the ICO launched a consultation series on Generative AI, examining how aspects of data protection law should apply to the development and use of the technology. It is expected to issue more AI guidance later in 2024.
Our AI Act workshop will help you understand the new law in detail and its interaction with the UK’s objectives and strategy for AI regulation.
