Europe’s AI Act would come into force next month following an EU agreement approved on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
The European Union’s AI Act is more comprehensive than the US approach to voluntary compliance. China’s approach, on the other hand, aims to maintain social stability and state control.
The EU vote came two months after lawmakers backed the European Commission’s AI Act 2021 after making a number of key changes. Concerns that artificial intelligence is fuelling the spread of misinformation, fake news, and copyrighted material have intensified globally in recent months amid the growing popularity of generative AI systems, such as Microsoft’s OpenAI-backed ChatGPT and Google’s chatbot Gemini.
Belgian digitisation minister Mathieu Michel stated:
This landmark law, the first of its kind in the world, addresses a global technological challenge that also creates opportunities for our societies and economies. With the AI Act, Europe emphasizes the importance of trust, transparency and accountability when dealing with new technologies while at the same time ensuring this fast-changing technology can flourish and boost European innovation.
The AI Act imposes strict transparency obligations on high-risk AI systems. The law restricts governments from using real-time biometric surveillance in public places. Governments can now only track certain crimes, prevent terrorist attacks and search for people suspected of the most serious offences.
The new legislation would affect beyond the 27-country bloc, Patrick van Eecke of law firm Cooley stated.
The Act will have global reach. Companies outside the EU who use EU customer data in their AI platforms will need to comply. Other countries and regions are likely to use the AI Act as a blueprint, just as they did with the GDPR.
Although the new legislation will come into force in 2026, bans on the use of artificial intelligence in social scoring, preventative policing, and the inappropriate extraction of images of individuals from the internet or CCTV footage will come into force six months after the new regulation comes into force. Obligations for general-purpose AI models will apply 12 months later.
Fines for violations range from €7.5 million or 1.5% of turnover to €35 million or 7% of global turnover, depending on the type of infringement.
