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13 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 13 DECEMBER 2023 EWROPEJ This article is part of a content series called Ewropej. This is a multi-newsroom initiative part-funded by the European Parliament to bring the work of the EP closer to the citizens of Malta and keep them informed about matters that affect their daily lives. This article reflects only the author's view. The action was co-financed by the European Union in the frame of the European Parliament's grant programme in the field of communication. The European Parliament was not involved in its preparation and is, in no case, responsible for or bound by the information or opinions expressed in the context of this action. In accordance with applicable law, the authors, interviewed people, publishers or programme broadcasters are solely responsible. The European Parliament can also not be held liable for direct or indirect damage that may result from the implementation of the action. MATTHEW VELLA mvella@mediatoday.com.mt AI: MEPs climb down on request for unconditional ban on live facial recognition THE EU bloc reached a provi- sional agreement on an Artificial Intelligence Act which legislators said would ensure AI in Europe is safe and respects fundamental rights and democracy. But the law has been lambasted by Amnesty International for not having banned public mass sur- veillance. On Friday, European Parlia- ment and Council negotiators reached a provisional agreement on the AI Act, to ban applications that carry biometric categorisa- tion that use sensitive character- istics, such as political, religious, philosophical beliefs, sexual ori- entation, race; untargeted scrap- ing of facial images from CCTV footage; emotion recognition in the workplace and schools; social scoring; and systems that manip- ulate human behaviour or exploit people's vulnerabilities. But it was also apparent that the European Parliament climbed down from its original position on strong protections, including an unconditional ban on live fa- cial recognition. Proponents argue that the draft allows only limited use of facial recognition and is subject to safeguards. But Amnesty insisted that no safeguards prevent the human rights harms that facial recognition inflicts. "Not ensuring a full ban on fa- cial recognition is therefore a hugely missed opportunity to stop and prevent colossal damage to human rights, civic space and rule of law that are already under threat throughout the EU," Am- nesty AI advisor Mher Hakoby- an, said. "Lawmakers also failed to ban the export of harmful AI technol- ogies, including for social scoring, which would be illegal in the EU. Allowing European companies to profit abroad off from technolo- gies that the law recognises im- permissibly harm human rights in their home states establishes a dangerous double standard," Amnesty added. Law enforcement exemptions MEP negotiators agreed on a series of safeguards and narrow exceptions for the use of biomet- ric identification systems (RBI) in publicly accessible spaces for law enforcement purposes, subject to prior judicial authorisation and for strictly defined lists of crime. "Post-remote" RBI would be used strictly in the targeted search of a person convicted or suspected of having committed a serious crime. "Real-time" RBI would comply with strict condi- tions and its use would be limit- ed in time and location, for the purposes of: targeted searches for victims of trafficking or ab- duction, prevention of a terrorist threat, and localising criminal and terror suspects – specifically in crimes of trafficking, sexual ex- ploitation, murder, kidnap, rape, armed robbery, organised crime and environmental crimes. Obligations for high-risk sys- tems MEPs successfully managed to include a mandatory fundamen- tal rights impact assessment, among other requirements, ap- plicable also to the insurance and banking sectors. For example, AI systems used to influence the outcome of elections and voter behaviour, are classified as high-risk and therefore subject to clear obli- gations. Citizens will have a right to launch complaints about AI sys- tems and receive explanations about decisions based on high- risk AI systems that impact their rights. Non-compliance with the rules can lead to fines ranging from €35 million or 7% of global turn- over to €7.5 million or 1.5% of turnover, depending on the in- fringement and size of the com- pany. "Thanks to the European Par- liament's resilience, the world's first horizontal legislation on ar- tificial intelligence will keep the European promise – ensuring that rights and freedoms are at the centre of the development of this ground-breaking technol- ogy," said Italian co-rapporteur Brando Benifei (S&D). Co-rapporteur Dragos Tudor- ache (Renew, Romania) said: "The EU is the first in the world to set in place robust regulation on AI, guiding its development and evolution in a human-cen- tric direction. The AI Act sets rules for large, powerful AI mod- els, ensuring they do not present systemic risks to the Union and offers strong safeguards for our citizens and our democracies against any abuses of technology by public authorities." Intensive technical meetings are set to follow the provisional high-level political deal before a finalised text can be adopted as law. MEPs toast provisional agreement on Artificial Intelligence Act and human rights safeguards