artificial intelligence
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The EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act: Civil society amendments
Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly used in all areas of public life. It is vital that the AI Act addresses the structural, societal, political and economic impacts of the use of AI, is future-proof, and prioritises affected people, the protection of fundamental rights and democratic values. The following issue papers detail the amendments of civil society following the Civil Society Statement on the AI Act, released in November 2021.
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The European Parliament must go further to empower people in the AI act
Today, 21 April, POLITICO Europe published a leak of the much-anticipated draft report on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act proposal. The draft report has taken important steps towards a more people-focused approach, but it has failed to introduce crucial red lines and safeguards on the uses of AI, including ‘place-based’ predictive policing systems, remote biometric identification, emotion recognition, discriminatory or manipulative biometric categorisation, and uses of AI undermining the right to asylum.
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Italian DPA fines Clearview AI for illegally monitoring and processing biometric data of Italian citizens
On 9 March 2022, the Italian Data Protection Authority fined the US-based facial recognition company Clearview AI EUR 20 million after finding that the company monitored and processed biometric data of individuals on Italian territory without a legal basis. The fine is the highest expected according to the General Data Protection Regulation, and it was motivated by a complaint sent by the Hermes Centre in May 2021 in a joint action with EDRi members Privacy International, noyb, and Homo Digitalis—in addition to complaints sent by some individuals and to a series of investigations launched in the wake of the 2020 revelations of Clearview AI business practices.
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The European Commission does not sufficiently understand the need for better AI law
The Dutch Senate shares the concerns Bits of Freedom has about the Artificial Intelligence Act and wrote a letter to the European Commission about the need to better protect people from harmful uses of AI such as through biometric surveillance. The Commission has given a response to this which is not exactly reassuring.
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Civil society calls on the EU to ban predictive AI systems in policing and criminal justice in the AI Act
40+ civil society organisations, led by Fair Trials and European Digital Rights (EDRi) are calling on the EU to ban predictive systems in policing and criminal justice in the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA).
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2021: Looking back at digital rights in the year of resilience
We started 2021, hoping to leave the tremendously challenging year of 2020 behind. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on our societies, causing unprecedented harm to people and economies. If 2020 was the year of the pandemic shock, 2021 was the year of resilience. We had to learn to live in a constant uncertainty of what it would take to keep defending human rights: Could we work and walk down the streets without being constantly surveilled? Would efforts to tackle disinformation distort legitimate content, or would they bring down Big Tech instead? Will 2022 be 2021 2.0?
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The ICO provisionally issues £17 million fine against facial recognition company Clearview AI
Following EDRi member Privacy International's (PI) submissions before the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), as well as other European regulators, the ICO has announced its provisional intent to fine Clearview AI.
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Civil society calls on the EU to put fundamental rights first in the AI Act
Today, 30 November 2021, European Digital Rights (EDRi) and 119 civil society organisations launched a collective statement to call for an Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) which foregrounds fundamental rights.
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Artificial intelligence – a tool of austerity
This week Human Rights Watch published a much-needed comment on the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Regulation. As governments increasingly resort to AI systems to administer social security and public services more broadly, there is an ever-greater need to analyse the impact on fundamental rights and the broader public interest.
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Booklet: If AI is the problem, is debiasing the solution?
The development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) in all areas of public life have raised many concerns about the harmful consequences on society, in particular the impact on marginalised communities. EDRi's latest report "Beyond Debiasing: Regulating AI and its Inequalities", authored by Agathe Balayn and Dr. Seda Gürses,* argues that policymakers must tackle the root causes of the power imbalances caused by the pervasive use of AI systems. In promoting technical ‘debiasing’ as the main solution to AI driven structural inequality, we risk vastly underestimating the scale of the social, economic and political problems AI systems can inflict.
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EDRi submits response to the European Commission AI adoption consultation
Today, 3rd of August 2021, European Digital Rights (EDRi) submitted its response to the European Commission’s adoption consultation on the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA).
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They can hear you: 6 ways tech is listening to you
Voice recognition technology often violates human rights, and it’s popping up more and more. Recently EDRi's member Access Now called out Spotify for developing voice recognition tech that claims to be able to detect gender and emotional state, among other things. But it’s not just Spotify. Some of the most powerful companies in the world are deploying similar abusive tech because harvesting data about you is profitable. The market for voice recognition is growing, expected to be worth a whopping $26.8 billion by 2025.
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