site.btaBulgarian MEPs Comment on Upcoming EU AI Legislation

On Wednesday, the European Parliament approved a piece of legislation on artificial intelligence (AI) that ensures safety and respect for fundamental rights while promoting innovation. The regulation, agreed with member states in December 2023, was backed by 523 votes in favour, 46 votes against and 49 abstentions, said the EP press centre. The regulation will undergo a final review and is expected to be finally adopted before the end of the legislative term. 

The regulation establishes obligations for AI based on potential risks and degree of impact. The new rules ban some AI applications that threaten citizens' rights, including biometric categorization systems based on sensitive characteristics, as well as the indiscriminate extraction of facial images from the Internet or from video surveillance footage to create facial recognition databases. Emotion recognition systems in the workplace and in schools, systems for social assessment, crime prediction (based on profiling or assessing characteristics), and AI that manipulates human behavior or exploits people's vulnerabilities will also be banned. 

Bulgarian MEPs Eva Maydel (EPP/GERB) and Petar Vitanov (Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats/BSP) commented on the EU AI legislation. They met with Bulgarian journalists in Strasbourg to explain the expected vote on the agreement reached with European Union countries.

Eva Maydell said that there are both benefits and risks to AI, the former including in medicine and business, and the latter - fake news, infringing on privacy, etc. 
Petar Vitanov, a leading MEP on this legislation, reported the adopted texts as "a great victory, guaranteeing both the development of technology and the protection of rights."

For more than three and a half years, the EU and its bodies have been "mulling over" the legislation, said Vitanov. Right-wing parties had fundamental differences regarding the framing of the legislation, because they wanted the direction to be more about preserving the competitiveness of European enterprises in this area, but for the left-wing politicians it was important to guarantee civil rights and freedoms, Vitanov stressed. 

About 90% of AI systems are risk-free or low-risk, but 10% of them are high-risk and they will be regulated in the new European legislation, he specified. For example, real-time biometric identification systems will be banned, he confirmed. Vitanov also said that many AI-related ideas are born in Europe, but experts and companies then go to other places in the world to develop and implement them. In countries like the USA and China, AI is developing extremely fast, the MEP added.

Vitanov noted that the MEPs manged to resist big businesses driven by huge financial interests, even though the corporate interests were colossal and there was a lot of lobbying on this law. He expressed pride that in the face of this enormous pressure, the European Parliament stood its ground and fights for its citizens.