Twelve civil society organisations, including the European Disability Forum (EDF), have signed an open letter calling the Czech presidency of the Council and EU ministers to ensure fundamental rights protections in their position on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act. The letter, released on 17 October, draws attention to several essential elements that are missing from the Council’s draft position;
Accessibility, Accountability, Redress
The organisations call for:
- Mandatory accessibility requirements for providers and users of all AI systems consistent with the European Accessibility Act (EAA). In the current form, they are only included as a voluntary measure.
- Proper rights and redress mechanisms to empower people affected by AI systems. The letter proposes improvements such as the right not to be subject to non-compliant AI systems and the right to be provided on request with information about decisions taken with the assistance of systems within the scope of the Act.
- Meaningful accountability and public transparency obligations that allow public interest organisations, researchers and affected persons to understand the context in which high-risk AI is deployed.
- Meaningful and balanced civil society participation within the standardisation processes, governance, enforcement mechanisms and processes to update the list of high-risk systems and other categories. The participation of fundamental rights and accessibility experts should be promoted.
- Comprehensive prohibition of all AI systems that pose an unacceptable risk to fundamental rights, such as remote biometric identification, predictive policing, harmful uses in the context of migration and biometric categorisation.
Classification of high-risk systems
The letter expresses concern about some of the shortcomings introduced by the draft Council Position: a narrower definition of AI systems, a limitation in the classification of high-risk systems, transparency exceptions for law enforcement and migration authorities, a broad exemption for AI systems used for national security purposes, and the lack of fundamental rights expertise in national enforcement authorities.
Details and Signatories
The Council of the EU is currently revising the Commission’s Artificial Intelligence Act proposal to reach an agreed position that brings on board the interests of the 27 Member States. The above-mentioned letter was sent to ensure that the final Council position – the Common Approach – incorporates strong fundamental right-based features. Once the Common Approach is adopted, the Council will be ready to start negotiations with the European Parliament towards the final adoption of the Act.
This letter has been signed by Access Now, Algorithm Watch, Amnesty Tech, European Digital Rights (EDRi), European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL), European Disability Forum, Fair Trials, Homo Digitalis, Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), Panoptykon Foundation, and the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM).