Artificial intelligence, limits on its use activated in the EU

Brussels – Everything as planned. Six months after the new Artificial Intelligence Act was enacted, bans on practices considered prohibited in the EU have been activated. Member states have until August 2 to define the penalties for those not complying with these all-European bans. By the same date, governments must identify appropriate responsible authorities. From now on, manipulative techniques and, thus, subliminal practices through new technology will not be allowed. Likewise, artificial intelligence will not and must not exploit people’s young age or physical condition to disadvantage them. No abuse of minors or disabled people, therefore.

Moreover, new technologies will not be allowed to be used to create a “social scoring” system and thus classify people into “good” or “bad,” nor will it be allowed to use personal data or characteristics to profile individuals as potential criminals (a recommendation, the latter, aimed mainly at security and police forces). Then there is the ban on indiscriminately extracting images from the Internet to build databases for facial recognition, and for employers, a ban on using cameras or voice analysis systems to capture the emotional state of their employees.

Finally, the EU bans biometric recognition systems to infer political or sexual orientation. The last ban involves real-time facial recognition technologies in shopping streets and crowded places, although exceptions are allowed for public safety reasons.

The regulation on artificial intelligence provides for an emergency procedure that will allow law enforcement to use a high-risk artificial intelligence tool that has failed the evaluation procedure, which will have to dialogue with the specific mechanism on the protection of fundamental rights. There are also exemptions for using real-time remote biometric identification systems in publicly accessible spaces, subject to judicial authorization, and for strictly defined crimes. “Post-remote” use may only be used for the targeted search of a person convicted of or suspected of committing a serious crime, while real-time use “limited in time and location” for targeted searches of victims (kidnapping, trafficking, sexual exploitation), prevention of a “specific and current” terrorist threat, and for locating or identifying a person suspected of committing specific crimes (terrorism, human trafficking, sexual exploitation, murder, kidnapping, rape, armed robbery, participation in a criminal organization, environmental crimes).