European Commission propose to restrict the use of AI
The European Commission is going to adopt today a regulatory framework that limits the use of artificial intelligence on the EU territory. It is assumed that the use of AI for indiscriminate surveillance of natural persons should be banned, or, as the bill says, “AI systems used for general purpose social scoring” should be prohibited.
The initiative of the European Commission is assessed by analysts as a counterweight to the Chinese system of the so-called social credit scoring, which actively uses AI. This system allows the ministries of China to exchange information about the social credit score of each resident of the country and, in the event of social misdeeds, impose certain restrictions or penalties on persons. One of the most recent examples of the use of the social credit scoring system was the ban on air travel and travel by trains for those who, for example, smoked in the wrong places or used expired travel documents. All this information has already been collected and consolidated by the Chinese government using AI.
The proposals to restrict the use of AI, which the European Commission plans to adopt today, will be a continuation of an already long-standing personal data protection policy, implemented on the basis of the GDPR regulation adopted in 2016. In this respect, Europe is significantly ahead of both the United States and China, where personal data is still fairly loosely treated.
According to the EC project, companies that breach the laws on AI could reportedly be fined 20 million euros, or 4% of their global revenue.
