On the 25 June, the European Parliament’s Think Tank published a new studyon the impact of the GDRP on artificial intelligence (AI). The study was prepared at the request of the Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA) and managed by the Scientific Foresight Unit, within the Directorate-General for Parliamentary Research Services (EPRS) of the Secretariat of the European Parliament.

The paper examines the provisions of the GDPR that are of relevance to AI and it proposes means of interpreting, applying and developing the data protection principles in a way that are consistent with the era of AI and Big Data. Moreover, the authors propose that organisations using AI-based processing tools should adopt a responsible and risk-oriented approach to comply with the GDPR values. Finally, the need for clear guidance from the European Commission and/or the regulatory authorities is highlighted.

The study follows another paper published by the European Parliament’s Think Tank titled Artificial intelligence: From ethics to policy.

Both these papers reflect the EU regulatory approach on AI. As it was already outlined in the European Commission’s White Paper on AI earlier this year, EU wishes to establish itself as a leader in the global AI-market. In this regard, together with considerable investments in the AI industry and talent, and the promotion of data sharing in the EU, the Commission wishes to establish trust in the EU AI-market by regulating the following areas:

• Ethics;
• Data, privacy and cybersecurity;
• Liability in the AI value chain;
• Sectoral rules (e.g. competition, labour, administrative law);

Until the Commission clears the regulatory landscape, the CIOs of organisations developing, planning to use, or already using AI in some level of their value chain should already put in place a clear and future-proof AI governance that will ensure the compliance of their AI-solution with the current and upcoming EU regulations and policies.

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