Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Global cities
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

European Parliament on AI Act: still rights gaps to fill

Sarah Chander and Ella Jakubowska 19th June 2023

The parliament has stood firm against mass surveillance but has missed the opportunity to enhance provisions.

AI,artificial intelligence,European Parliament
The European panopticon: the use of AI to facilitate illegal pushbacks at EU borders would not be prohibited by the parliament’s text (max.ku / shutterstock.com)

Last Wednesday, the European Parliament voted in plenary in favour of strong protections of fundamental rights in its official position on the emerging EU Artificial Intelligence Act. These include sustaining advances on human-rights impact assessments and transparency requirements made in committee.

The vote also upheld red lines against unacceptably harmful uses of AI, including decisively protecting people against live facial recognition and other biometric surveillance in public spaces, as well as emotion recognition in key sectors, biometric categorisation, predictive policing and social scoring.

This is a critical time for AI regulation globally, and the parliament’s final position is in many ways a win for fundamental rights. Work on the AI Act started in 2020 and European Digital Rights (EDRi), its network and partners have been urging EU lawmakers to prioritise fundamental rights and put people before profits from the beginning.

Preventing discrimination

In an historic step, MEPs have listened to the evidence, in ensuring that all live, and most retrospective, uses of systems of remote biometric identification (RBI), in public spaces, are prohibited in their text. This foregrounds preservation of free expression, assembly and non-discrimination in public spaces going into the ‘trilogue’ negotiations with the European Commission and the Council of the EU.


Become part of our Community of Thought Leaders


Get fresh perspectives delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for our newsletter to receive thought-provoking opinion articles and expert analysis on the most pressing political, economic and social issues of our time. Join our community of engaged readers and be a part of the conversation.

Sign up here

The parliament also voted to ban biometric categorisation on the basis of sensitive characteristics, such as perceived sexuality, gender, race or ethnicity, and emotion recognition in education settings, workplaces, by police and at borders. These prohibitions are just as important for preventing discrimination and protecting human rights as bans on RBI.

This was the culmination of years of work by a diverse group of 80 civil-society groups, in the Reclaim Your Face campaign. They will continue to fight for full protection from all retrospective RBI, all emotion recognition and automated behavioural detection in public spaces.

Despite an aggressive last-minute push from the centre-right European People’s Party to overturn the committee agreement on biometric surveillance, MEPs showed that they had heard the voices of more than 250,000 people across Europe who want to keep public spaces free of facial recognition and other biometric mass-surveillance systems.

The EU’s border panopticon

The parliament however failed to introduce new provisions which would protect the rights of migrants from ever-increasing regimes of discriminatory surveillance. This is despite AI systems increasingly being developed to track, control and monitor migrants in new and harmful ways.

The list of prohibited practices adopted does not include the use of AI to facilitate illegal pushbacks or to profile people on the move in a discriminatory manner. Without these prohibitions, the parliament reinforces the panopticon at the EU’s borders.

At committee level, the parliament took significant steps to empower individuals affected by the use of AI systems—including a requirement to provide explanations to those affected by AI-based decisions or outcomes—and to complain when AI systems violate their rights.

The parliament did not however extend these rights and mechanisms in last week’s vote. It voted to reject the right to an explanation for all AI systems (not just ‘high-risk’ uses) and for the right of public-interest organisations to bring complaints when AI systems do not comply with the regulation.

The three-way negotiations on the final text are now under way. They are expected to be completed by the end of the year, with the aim to pass the law ahead of the European Parliament elections in June 2024. The broad coalition of concerned civil-society organisations will continue focusing on human rights during these deliberations.


Support Progressive Ideas: Become a Social Europe Member!


Support independent publishing and progressive ideas by becoming a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month. You can help us create more high-quality articles, podcasts and videos that challenge conventional thinking and foster a more informed and democratic society. Join us in our mission - your support makes all the difference!

Become a Social Europe Member

Sarah Chander
Sarah Chander

Sarah Chander leads EDRi's policy work on artificial intelligence and the EU’s AI regulation. She also works on issues of discrimination in a digital context and migration-related technologies. She is working on a process of decolonising the digital-rights field alongside the Digital Freedom Fund.

Ella Jakubowska
Ella Jakubowska

Ella Jakubowska leads EDRi's policy work on the use of facial recognition and biometrics by state and private actors. She also leads on the proposed EU regulation for tackling child sexual-abuse material online and the 'Prüm II' proposal on law-enforcement exchange of information.

You are here: Home / Society / European Parliament on AI Act: still rights gaps to fill

Most Popular Posts

Russia,information war Russia is winning the information warAiste Merfeldaite
Nanterre,police Nanterre and the suburbs: the lid comes offJoseph Downing
Russia,nuclear Russia’s dangerous nuclear consensusAna Palacio
Belarus,Lithuania A tale of two countries: Belarus and LithuaniaThorvaldur Gylfason and Eduard Hochreiter
retirement,Finland,ageing,pension,reform Late retirement: possible for many, not for allKati Kuitto

Most Recent Posts

OECD,inflation,monetary The OECD and the Great Monetary RestrictionRonald Janssen
prostitution,Europe,abolition Prostitution is not a free choice for womenLina Gálvez Muñoz
Abuse,work,workplace,violence Abuse at work: who bears the brunt?Agnès Parent-Thirion and Viginta Ivaskaite-Tamosiune
Ukraine,fatigue Ukraine’s cause: momentum is diminishingStefan Wolff and Tetyana Malyarenko
Vienna,social housing Vienna social-housing model: celebrated but misusedGabu Heindl

Other Social Europe Publications

strategic autonomy Strategic autonomy
Bildschirmfoto 2023 05 08 um 21.36.25 scaled 1 RE No. 13: Failed Market Approaches to Long-Term Care
front cover Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

The summer issue of the Progressive Post magazine by FEPS is out!

The Special Coverage of this new edition is dedicated to the importance of biodiversity, not only as a good in itself but also for the very existence of humankind. We need a paradigm change in the mostly utilitarian relation humans have with nature.

In this issue, we also look at the hazards of unregulated artificial intelligence, explore the shortcomings of the EU's approach to migration and asylum management, and analyse the social downside of the EU's current ethnically-focused Roma policy.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI European Collective Bargaining Report 2022 / 2023

With real wages falling by 4 per cent in 2022, workers in the European Union suffered an unprecedented loss in purchasing power. The reason for this was the rapid increase in consumer prices, behind which nominal wage growth fell significantly. Meanwhile, inflation is no longer driven by energy import prices, but by domestic factors. The increased profit margins of companies are a major reason for persistent inflation. In this difficult environment, trade unions are faced with the challenge of securing real wages—and companies have the responsibility of making their contribution to returning to the path of political stability by reducing excess profits.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

The future of remote work

The 12 chapters collected in this volume provide a multidisciplinary perspective on the impact and the future trajectories of remote work, from the nexus between the location from where work is performed and how it is performed to how remote locations may affect the way work is managed and organised, as well as the applicability of existing legislation. Additional questions concern remote work’s environmental and social impact and the rapidly changing nature of the relationship between work and life.


AVAILABLE HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound Talks: does Europe have the skills it needs for a changing economy?

In this episode of the Eurofound Talks podcast, Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound’s research manager, Tina Weber, its senior research manager, Gijs van Houten, and Giovanni Russo, senior expert at CEDEFOP (The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training), about Europe’s skills challenges and what can be done to help workers and businesses adapt to future skills demands.

Listen where you get your podcasts, or for free, by clicking on the link below


LISTEN HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube