Europe’s landmark artificial intelligence rules will come into force next month after EU countries on Tuesday approved a political agreement reached in December, setting a potential global benchmark for the technology used in business and everyday life.
The EU’s AI law is more comprehensive than the United States’ lax approach to voluntary compliance, while China’s approach aims to maintain social stability and state control.
The vote in EU countries came two months after EU lawmakers backed the European Commission’s 2021 AI rules, introducing a number of key changes.
In recent months, concerns have increased around the world that artificial intelligence is contributing to disinformation, phony news and copyrighted material.
continued below
“This groundbreaking law, the first of its kind in the world, responds to a global technological challenge that also creates opportunities for our societies and economies,” Belgian Digital Minister Mathieu Michel said in a statement.
“With the Artificial Intelligence Act, Europe highlights the importance of trust, transparency and responsibility when dealing with recent technologies, while ensuring the development of this rapidly changing technology and stimulating European innovation,” he said.
The Artificial Intelligence Act imposes stringent transparency obligations on high-risk AI systems, while such requirements will be lighter for general-purpose AI models.
Limits governments’ utilize of real-time biometric surveillance in public spaces to specific crimes, the prevention of terrorist attacks and searches for people suspected of committing the most sedate crimes.
The recent rules will have an impact beyond the 27-nation bloc, said Patrick van Eecke of law firm Cooley.
“The act will have global reach. Non-EU companies that utilize EU customer data in their AI platforms will have to comply. Other countries and regions are likely to utilize the Artificial Intelligence Act as a model, as was the case with GDPR.” he said, referring to EU privacy rules.
Although the recent rules will come into force in 2026, bans on the utilize of artificial intelligence in social scoring, predictive policing and untargeted downloading of facial images from the Internet or CCTV footage will come into force six months after the entry into force of the recent regulation.
The obligations on general-purpose AI models will apply after 12 months, and the provisions on AI systems embedded in regulated products will apply after 36 months.
Penalties for violations range from 7.5 million euros ($8.2 million) or 1.5% of turnover to 35 million euros or 7% of global turnover, depending on the type of violations.
($1 = 0.9199 euros)
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, editing by Tassilo Hummel)
Most read on GRC
