European Council gives final nod to landmark AI act

The European Council announced on Tuesday that ministers from the European Union (EU) member states have given their final approval to the bloc's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act, subjecting high-risk AI applications to stricter regulation.

The act bans AI systems involved in cognitive behavioral manipulation and social scoring within the EU. It also prohibits the use of AI for predictive policing based on profiling and systems that use biometric data to categorize people according to specific categories such as race, religion or sexual orientation.

For general-purpose AI systems, the act requires compliance with transparency requirements if they do not pose systemic risks. However, those with such risks must comply with stricter rules.

Notably, the act exempts systems used exclusively for military, defense and research purposes from these regulations.

To ensure proper enforcement, the act establishes several governing bodies, including an AI office, a scientific panel of experts, an AI board with representatives from member states and an advisory forum for stakeholders.

Once signed by the presidents of the European parliament and the council, the legislative act will be published in the EU's Official Journal and will enter into force 20 days after publication.

The vote by EU countries came two months after EU lawmakers backed the AI legislation drafted by the European Commission in 2021 after making a number of key changes. The new act adopts a risk-based approach.

Concerns about AI contributing to misinformation, fake news and copyrighted material have intensified globally in recent months amid the growing popularity of generative AI systems such as Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's chatbot Gemini.

"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," Belgian Secretary of State for Digitization Mathieu Michel said in a statement. "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," he said.

The new legislation will have an impact beyond the 27-country bloc, said Patrick van Eecke at law firm Cooley. "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 (General Data Protection Regulation)," he said, referring to the EU privacy rules.

While the new legislation will be fully applied in 2026 step by step, bans on the use of AI in social scoring, predictive policing and untargeted scraping of facial images from the internet or CCTV (closed-circuit television) footage will kick in in six months once the new regulation enters into force. Obligations for general purpose AI models will apply after 12 months and rules for AI systems embedded into regulated products in 36 months.

(With input from agencies)