European Parliament Passes Landmark Artificial Intelligence Regulation
The European Parliament officially approves the Artificial Intelligence Act, a comprehensive law that bans high-risk applications like social scoring while safeguarding fundamental rights. The legislation establishes a risk-based framework to regulate AI across the continent.
The European Parliament approves the Artificial Intelligence Act, a groundbreaking law designed to protect fundamental rights, democracy, and environmental sustainability from high-risk AI systems. MEPs endorse the regulation with 523 votes in favour, establishing a risk-based framework that aims to position Europe as a leader in the AI sector while ensuring strict safety compliance.
The legislation explicitly bans AI applications that threaten citizens' rights, including social scoring, emotion recognition in workplaces and schools, and predictive policing based solely on personal profiling. Furthermore, the law prohibits the untargeted scraping of facial images from the internet or CCTV footage to create recognition databases, alongside banning AI systems that manipulate human behaviour or exploit user vulnerabilities.
While the law strictly limits the use of biometric identification systems by law enforcement, it includes narrow exemptions for specific situations like preventing a terrorist attack or searching for a missing person. These real-time uses require strict safeguards, including geographic and time limits, while post-facto biometric identification is classified as a high-risk use case that demands prior judicial authorization linked to a criminal offence.