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The agreement among the leading groups in the European Parliament on the AI regulation is dead, opening the door for amendments from both sides of the aisle.

The AI Act is a landmark legislation to regulate Artificial Intelligence based on its potential to cause harm. The European Parliament is set to vote on the legislative proposal on 14 June, as the deadline for tabling amendments passed on Wednesday (7 June).

At the end of April, the four main political parties agreed that they would not table alternative amendments, with the partial exception of the European People’s Party (EPP), which was granted some flexibility on the issue of remote biometric identification.

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With the present consultation, the Commission wishes to gather feedback from stakeholders on the draft template for the compliance reports to ensure that they include all the relevant information needed by the Commission to assess the effective compliance of designated gatekeepers with the DMA. All interested parties have now one month to submit their views on the draft, until 5 July 2023.

The Commission will designate the gatekeepers under the DMA by 6 September 2023. Designated companies will then have six months to comply with the a list of obligations and prohibitions in the DMA and subsequently issue a report demonstrating their effective compliance. They will also have to update these compliance reports annually.

Amazon has agreed to pay more than $US30 million ($47 million) in fines to US regulators following allegations of historical privacy abuses, including retaining data collected from children after being explicitly asked to delete it.

In one case, the US Federal Trade Commission had alleged that, before mid-2019, the company failed to remove voice recordings, transcriptions and precise location data collected from children via the Alexa voice assistant even after parents requested their removal.

In another case, it said the company’s Ring video doorbells and security cameras had unreasonable privacy practices in January 2020. According to the FTC, Ring employees and contractors were given unrestricted access to view videos taken at users’ homes.

In both cases, the regulators specifically frame the breaches as designed to train Amazon AI and algorithms at the expense of users’ privacy, placing the fines within a trend of lawmakers around the world cracking down on unnecessary data collection and retention.

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Today, the European Union and the United States have held the fourth ministerial meeting of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC) in Luleå, Sweden.

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Meta on Monday was fined a record 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) and ordered to stop transferring data collected from Facebook users in Europe to the United States, in a major ruling against the social media company for violating European Union data protection rules.

The penalty, announced by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, is potentially one of the most consequential in the five years since the European Union enacted the landmark data privacy law known as the General Data Protection Regulation. Regulators said the company failed to comply with a 2020 decision by the European Union’s highest court that Facebook data shipped across the Atlantic was not sufficiently protected from American spy agencies.

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22nd May 2023

The Data Protection Commission (“the DPC”) has today announced the conclusion of its inquiry into Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (“Meta Ireland”), examining the basis upon which Meta Ireland transfers personal data from the EU/EEA to the US in connection with the delivery of its Facebook service.

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Following public consultation, the EDPB has adopted a final version of its Guidelines on facial recognition technology in the area of law enforcement. The guidelines provide guidance to EU and national lawmakers, as well as to law enforcement authorities, on implementing and using facial recognition technology systems.

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You can find that document on our website https://www.privacyresources.eu

‼️Oggi si è tenuto il primo evento online in italiano 🇮🇹 "XMPP Italian happy hour" dedicato a XMPP.

Gli eventi su XMPP si terranno online con live streaming il terzo martedì di ogni mese.

Prossimo appuntamento il 20 giugno 2023.

📹 Il video di oggi è disponibile qui: https://tube.nicfab.eu/w/xkMzvkSnxvkm2YdpqiGW12

Stay tuned!

#XMPP #federation #chat #interoperability

In the face of recent news on artificial intelligence, and in particular so-called generative AIs such as ChatGPT, the CNIL publishes an action plan for the deployment of AI systems that respect the privacy of individuals.

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The High-Level Group on the Digital Markets Act (DMA) will meet for the first time today.

The inaugural meeting will bring together representatives of different European bodies and networks to discuss issues of common interest as regards the implementation of the DMA.

During this first meeting, the High-Level Group is expected to discuss several topics relevant to the application and enforcement of the DMA, including the state of its implementation, developments in the areas of expertise of the members of the Group that are of relevance for enforcement of the DMA, and findings of the series of DMA workshops organized by the Commission in the last six months on topics such as self-preferencing, interoperability, app stores, and data-related obligations.

The High-Level Group brings together 30 representatives nominated from the Body of the European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC), the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) and European Data Protection Board (EDPB), the European Competition Network (ECN), the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC Network), and the European Regulatory Group of Audiovisual Media Regulators (ERGA). The Group, set up in March 2023, has a mandate of two years, and will meet at least once per year.

The High-Level Group may provide the Commission with advice and expertise to ensure that the DMA and other sectoral regulations applicable to gatekeepers are implemented in a coherent and complementary manner. It may also provide expertise in market investigations into emerging services and practices, to help ensure that the DMA is future-proof.

BRUSSELS — Europe got closer to a full-on ban on facial recognition in public spaces and reining in ChatGPT after lawmakers adopted a strengthened version of the EU's artificial intelligence rulebook on Thursday.

Members of the European Parliament in the internal market and civil liberties committees passed their compromise text for the Artificial Intelligence Act, first floated by the European Commission in April 2021. The text was backed by an 84-7 vote, with 12 abstentions.

MEPs agreed on a blanket ban on remote biometric identification — AI-aided techniques, such as facial recognition, to recognize individuals from pictures or footage — in public venues, both in real-time and after the fact, in a departure from both the Commission's original proposal and the position backed in Council by EU member countries. The issue was hotly debated among leading lawmakers thrashing out the text, with the center-right Christian Democrats fiercely opposing the ban.

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We will all soon get into the habit of using AI tools for help with everyday problems and tasks. We should get in the habit of questioning the motives, incentives, and capabilities behind them, too.

Imagine you’re using an AI chatbot to plan a vacation. Did it suggest a particular resort because it knows your preferences, or because the company is getting a kickback from the hotel chain? Later, when you’re using another AI chatbot to learn about a complex economic issue, is the chatbot reflecting your politics or the politics of the company that trained it?

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