Evropská unie přijala regulaci umělé inteligence (tzv. AI Act)

The European Union adopts the Artificial Intelligence Regulation (AI Act)

On 13 March 2024, the European Parliament adopted a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (AI Act) (the "Regulation"). The Regulation aims to ensure a high level of protection of health, safety and respect for fundamental rights against the harmful effects of the use of artificial intelligence (the "AI") systems.

In particular, the Regulation applies to providers placing on the market or putting into service AI systems or general-purpose AI models in the EU, whether established or located within the EU or in a third country, and to deployers of AI systems that are established or located in the EU. However, the Regulation also applies to importers or distributors of AI systems and other listed entities.

Key points of the Regulation:

• Rules for the use of AI: The Regulation lays down harmonised rules in particular for the development, placing on the market, putting into service and use of AI systems in line with EU values;
• Prohibited AI practices: The Regulation lists a number of AI practices that are prohibited due to their potential threat to civil rights. These include profiling systems based on sensitive characteristics and manipulating human behaviour or exploiting human vulnerabilities, untargeted scraping of facial images for facial recognition databases, emotion infer systems in the workplace and education institutions, assessment of a person's social credit, and others;
• Real-time biometric identification: The use of remote "real-time" biometric identification systems in publicly accessible spaces for law enforcement purposes is severely limited, with exceptions only for specific, strictly defined situations, such as searching for missing persons or preventing terrorist attacks;
• Obligations for high-risk AI systems: Clear obligations are established for AI systems that may pose a significant risk to humanity, including ongoing risk assessment and mitigation, user transparency, accuracy and human oversight;
• Transparency and safeguards: AI systems must meet transparency requirements and ethical safeguards for information provision, including compliance with EU copyright law and clear labelling of artificially created material (the so called "deepfakes");
• Support for innovation and SMEs: The Regulation supports businesses, including SMEs and start-ups, in the innovative development of AI and its testing in real-world conditions.

The Regulation will enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the EU and will be fully applicable 24 months after its entry into force, with a few exceptions for certain aspects of the Regulation.

The Regulation is binding and directly applicable in all EU Member States. Accordingly, affected AI entities will need to revise their practices and systems to comply with the new legislation, whereby the individual obligations for affected entities vary depending on the categorisation of AI systems according to the risk that each system poses or may pose.

If you would like more detailed information, please do not hesitate to contact the authors of this alert or other members of the EY team with whom you usually work.

Authors:

Kryštof Chmelan

Johanna Roháčková