European Parliament approves world’s first comprehensive AI law: Know more
Summary
The agreement, which aims to ensure safety and compliance with fundamental rights, received overwhelming support during the Internal Market and Civil Liberties Committees’ vote on Tuesday, with a tally of 71-8 and 7 abstentions. It includes: • Untargeted scraping of facial images from the internet or CCTV footage for facial recognition databases • Emotion recognition in the workplace and schools • Predictive policing is based solely on profiling a person or assessing their characteristics The use of biometric identification systems (RBI) by law enforcement is prohibited in principle, except in exhaustively listed and narrowly defined situations. The legislation imposes clear obligations on high-risk AI systems that could significantly impact health, safety, fundamental rights, environment, democracy, and the rule of law. These obligations extend to critical infrastructure, education, employment, essential services, law enforcement, migration and border management, justice, and democratic processes. Regulatory sandboxes and real-world testing initiatives will be established at the national level, offering SMEs and startups opportunities to develop and train innovative AI solutions before market placement.