Monthly Bulletin – April 2022

European Parliament steps up its work on the proposed Artificial Intelligence Act

Else - Else.Groen@IndependentRetailEurope.eu - +32 2 732 46 60

Back

The European Parliament is making important progress on the Commission proposal for an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act. Debates have so far mostly focused on the need to curb certain risks that some AI products may pose to human rights or democratic processes, without inhibiting innovation. Many of Independent Retail Europe’s proposals to ensure more legal coherence between the AI Act and other product safety legislation have been retained in the draft report of the European Parliament Legal Affairs Committee.

Independent Retail Europe is very pleased to see that the draft report of MEP Axel Voss (Germany, EPP) for the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament took on board many of its suggestions, and in particular:

  • amendments to the article on distributors’ obligations, so as to ensure more legal coherence between these obligations under the future AI Act and the Commission proposal for a General Product Safety Regulation;
  • a clarification that trade secrets should be preserved when providing details on algorithms used as part of the mandatory technical documentation;
  • a clarification that the AI Act shall not ban the use of biometric identification for active authentication purposes (but only in the case of mass surveillance activities).

Meanwhile, the Industry, Research and Energy Committee of the European Parliament also published its draft opinion, while the joint report of the Internal Market & Consumer Protection (IMCO) and Civil Liberties, Justice & home Affairs (LIBE) Committees is expected to be published in the second half of April 2022. The European Parliament is expected to adopt its position on this file in September 2022.