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Artificial Intelligence (AI)

In this edition of our regular roundup on legislative initiatives related to artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, the Internet of Things (IoT), and connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs), we focus on key developments in the European Union (EU).
Continue Reading AI, IoT, and CAV Legislative Update: EU Spotlight (Third Quarter 2020)

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”) is seeking comments on the first draft of the Four Principles of Explainable Artificial Intelligence (NISTIR 8312), a white paper that seeks to define the principles that capture the fundamental properties of explainable AI systems.  NIST will be accepting comments until October 15, 2020.

In February

On July 30, 2020, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) published its final guidance on Artificial Intelligence (the “Guidance”).  The Guidance sets out a framework for auditing AI systems for compliance with data protection obligations under the GDPR and the UK Data Protection Act 2018.  The Guidance builds on the ICO’s earlier commitment to enable good data protection practice in AI, and on previous guidance and blogs issued on specific issues relating to AI (for example, on explaining decisions on AItrade-offs, and bias and discrimination, all covered in Covington blogs).
Continue Reading UK ICO publishes guidance on Artificial Intelligence

On June 4, 2020, Representatives Anna Eshoo (D-CA-18), Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH-16), and Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ-11) introduced the National AI Research Resource Task Force Act.  This bipartisan bill would create a task force to propose a roadmap for developing and sustaining a national research cloud for AI.  The cloud would help provide researchers with access

On May 28, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) hosted a meeting of the G7 Science & Technology (S&T) Ministers to collaborate on COVID-19 response and recovery.  The G7 S&T Ministers emerged from the meeting with a declaration, in which they expressed their intent to:

  • Enhance cooperation on shared COVID-19

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has played an important role in battling COVID-19 since the initial outbreak: HealthMap – an AI tool from Boston Children’s Hospital that scans news reports, social media, and other data for signs of disease outbreaks – first sounded the international alarm after picking up reports of an emerging virus in Wuhan, China.

NHSX recently published “A Buyer’s Checklist for AI in Health and Care” (Guidance) that sets out 10 key questions which will be of use to parties deploying AI solutions or conducting data driven projects (in a health and care setting or otherwise).  For example, the Guidance highlights:

  • key data-related considerations, such

As we anticipated in a previous blog post, on April 22, 2020, the European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”) issued new guidelines on the use of location data and contact tracing apps in the context of the present COVID-19 pandemic.

The EDPB’s new guidelines complement and build on similar guidance previously issued by the Board itself (see herehere and here), and by the European Commission (see our blog post here).

The EDPB’s close scrutiny over the use of mobile data and apps in the context of the ongoing public health crisis is unsurprising, as many EU Member States have launched—or are in the process of launching—contact tracing apps to fight the spread of the virus, and these initiatives are receiving great attention by data privacy authorities and the general public (see our blog post here).

The guidelines aim to clarify the data protection conditions and principles that should be followed when:

  • using location data to model the spread of the virus to assess the overall effectiveness of confinement measures; and
  • using contact tracing apps, which aim to notify individuals who may have been in close proximity to someone who is infected or confirmed as a carrier of the virus, in order to break the contamination chain as early as possible.

The EDPB stresses that EU data protection rules have been designed to be flexible and, as such, do not stand in the way of an efficient response to the pandemic.  However, it notes that governments and private actors should be mindful of a number of considerations when they use data-driven solutions in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.Continue Reading EDPB Issues New Guidance on the Use of Location Data and Contact Tracing in the Context of the COVID-19 Outbreak

On April 8, 2020, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) released a blog post about the use of artificial intelligence (“AI”) and algorithms in automated decisionmaking. The blog highlighted the potentially great benefits and risks presented by increasingly sophisticated technologies, particularly in the “Health AI” space. However, it also emphasized that automated decisionmaking is not a