Today, the Council of Ministers has given the green light to the draft bill for the proper use and governance of AI. Now, the document will be sent to the Cortes to begin its parliamentary processing and, once processed, will give rise to an organic law. And the regulation will have this rank, Óscar López, head of the portfolio for Digital Transformation and Public Function, emphasized after the Council of Ministers, “because it affects fundamental rights.”
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The reason for the law
The law, which represents the adaptation to Spanish legislation of the European AI Regulation, aims to ensure an ethical, inclusive, and beneficial use of AI and to facilitate that users can clearly distinguish real content from virtual content. The regulation, already in force, combines, in the words of the spokesperson minister, Elma Saiz, “regulation with safe, humanistic, and guarantee-based innovation.”
What new features does it present?
As Minister Óscar López recalled, it establishes, among other aspects, responsibility for AI providers, the obligation of human supervision of models of this technology as well as algorithm transparency, protection of minors, and data privacy.
What does the regulation consist of?
First, it classifies AI according to risk. In addition, it establishes a sanctions regime, a governance system (supervisory authorities), and a “double requirement” – pointed out Minister López – for the Public Administration in its use.
Sanctions
It differentiates several levels of infractions and sets sanctions ranging from 6,000 euros for the mildest cases to 35 million euros for the most serious cases, such as marketing a prohibited artificial intelligence system.
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Prohibited applications
There are several applications prohibited by the European regulation and incorporated into the national law. Up to eight: subliminal techniques (imperceptible images or sounds) to manipulate decisions without consent; exploiting vulnerabilities related to age, disability, or socioeconomic situation to substantially alter behaviors in a way that causes or may cause considerable harm; biometric classification of people by race or political, religious, or sexual orientation; or social scoring of individuals or groups based on social behaviors or personal traits as a selection method to, for example, deny them grants or loans.
Also predictive surveillance, that is, assessing the risk that a person will commit a crime based on personal data such as their family history, educational level, or place of residence, with legal exceptions; inferring emotions in workplaces or educational centers as an evaluation method for promotion or dismissal, except for medical or safety reasons; scraping of faces (massively collecting images of human faces from the internet or cameras to create biometric databases); or real-time identification. At Espapa’s request, two more prohibitions have been added to the regulation: techniques to create sexual deepfakes and child pornography.
Governance
There is a central body in Spain, Aesia (the Spanish AI Supervisory Agency), based in A Coruña, which centralizes the governance of this technology. However, the law determines a series of market surveillance authorities. For example, for the financial system, the Bank of Spain; for the stock market, the CNMV; for data, the Spanish Data Protection Agency; for insurance, the Directorate General of Insurance and Pension Funds; for Justice, the General Council of the Judiciary…
Greater self-demand for the Administration
In addition to doubling the requirements on AI models and transparency that the Public Administration can use, in the words of Minister López, the regulation also introduces the figure of an AI delegate. In this regard, the minister announced that the Administration will hire AI experts so that all public bodies have experts in this field.
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