A civil society statement on fundamental rights in the EU Artificial Intelligence Act
As European Union institutions 1 begin trilogue negotiations, civil society calls on EU institutions to ensure the Regulation puts people and fundamental rights first in the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act).
In Europe and around the world, AI systems are used to monitor and control us in public spaces, predict our likelihood of future criminality, facilitate violations of the right to claim asylum, predict our emotions and categorise us, and to make crucial decisions that determine our access to public services, welfare, education and employment.
Without strong regulation, companies and governments will continue to use AI systems that exacerbate mass surveillance, structural discrimination, centralised power of large technology companies, unaccountable public decision-making and environmental damage.
We call on EU institutions to ensure that AI development and use is accountable, publicly transparent, and that people are empowered to challenge harms:
- Empower affected people with a framework of accountability, transparency, accessibility and redress.
- Draw limits on harmful and discriminatory surveillance by national security, law enforcement and migration authorities.
- Push back on Big Tech lobbying: remove loopholes that undermine the regulation
