The European Parliament must ban use of abusive and discriminatory surveillance technologies in the final vote on the EU's Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act), international human rights organization Amnesty International said on Tuesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th June, 2023) The European Parliament must ban use of abusive and discriminatory surveillance technologies in the final vote on the EU's Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act), international human rights organization Amnesty International said on Tuesday.
The human rights watchdog urged the EU to ban racist profiling systems and technology, such as remote biometric identifiers, in the AI Act, which is expected to be adopted at a plenary vote on Wednesday, as such technology may be used to further abuse certain groups, already unequally affected by prejudiced law enforcement.
"There is a risk the European Parliament may upend considerable human rights protections... opening the door for the use of technologies which are in direct conflict with international human rights law," the agency's advocacy adviser on AI regulation Mher Hakobyan said in the statement.
The agency warned that the new AI Act may open doors for hostile technology tracking and restricting the movement of migrants and may be even capable of predicting and preventing border movements in order to deny asylum to those seeking it.
"In such a persistently inhospitable environment towards people fleeing wars and conflict or in search of a better life, it is vital that the European Parliament doesn't dismiss the harms of racist AI systems. Lawmakers must ban racist profiling and risk assessment systems, which label migrants and asylum seekers as 'threats'; and forecasting technologies to predict border movements and deny people the right to asylum," Hakobyan said.
Moreover, while discarding the use of abusive technology in Europe, the EU must also prevent it from spreading abroad, the agency said. According to researches, hostile surveillance technology produced in Europe has been used in Israel against Palestinians and in China against Uyghurs and other Muslim ethic groups, Amnesty said.
In May, the European Parliament announced that its committees of internal market and civil liberties voted in favor of putting the draft AI Act to a plenary vote in mid-June. If approved, it will codify the world's first rules setting limits around the use of biometric surveillance, emotion recognition and predictive policing, as well as generative systems like ChatGPT.
