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The AI Act: A compass for approaching legislation with innovative and disruptive effects
Journal of Data Protection & Privacy,
6
(4),
318-331
(2024)
Abstract
This paper aims to provide an overview of the EU regulation on artificial intelligence (hereafter the AI Act) by navigating through its main proposals and innovations. A geopolitical framework will be provided with reference to the balance to be struck between innovation and the protection of fundamental rights and the decisions that led to the final version of the AI Act, during the inter-institutional agreement. The overview will include each risk category, including how the regulation dealt with AI for general purposes, which was not considered in the European Commission's first draft published in April 2021. In addition to the risk categories, the governance model and innovation support measures will also be analysed. The paper is addressed to practitioners, academics, policy makers and postgraduate researchers who are approaching the AI Act for the first time.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence Act; EU regulation; data protection; risk-based approach; high-risk AI; regulatory compliance
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Rocco Panetta Attorney at Law admitted to the Italian Highest Courts, Chairman of Panetta Consulting Group and Managing Partner of Panetta Law Firm, is an internationally renowned tech, data and AI lawyer, as well as a certified privacy professional and external DPO. IAPP Country Leader for Italy and Westin Emeritus Fellow, until 2022 Rocco served as a board member of IAPP. Counsel of the Italian Government on the tech strategy 2013–17, Rocco has previously been a top-level officer at the Garante (2001–08), heading one of its legal departments. His tasks and duties included, among others, supervising and dealing with marketing, public licensed operators and international data transfers. While at the Authority he was Italy's representative at the Commission's Article 29 WP and worked on BCRs, SCCs, SH, APIS/PNR and IMI. He also served both as Secretary General and Commissioner of the Italian Commission on Environmental Impact Assessment from 2007 to 2012 and was a former ethics expert of ERCEA — European Research Council Executive Agency. Based in Rome and Brussels, Rocco leads one of the largest and most highly specialised data and tech teams in the EU, advising and assisting multinational companies from strategic to legal issues dealing with the impact of new tech on data governance, from AI impact on companies business to the implementation of global privacy compliance programmes, acting also as external DPO for a number of national and multinational corporations in various field from fashion to gaming, from retail to health care. He has authored more than 200 publications and he is constantly invited as a speaker to conferences and universities. Throughout the years, Rocco has been ranked among the leading lawyers by Chambers Europe, Legal500 and TopLegal. From 2019 to 2024 he was awarded Best Privacy Lawyer of the Year at Legalcommunity's IP&TMT Awards. In 2023 Rocco was listed among the 100 Best Italian professionals by Forbes and the newspaper `La Repubblica` mentioned Rocco among the 500 people to watch in the AI market.
Vincenzo Tiani LLM graduate in IP and ICT law from KU Leuven, specialises in privacy and personal data protection. He previously worked at the European Parliament on European copyright reform and later joined EDRi and CDT, advocating for online fundamental rights. Since 2018, he has been an adjunct professor at IULM University in Milan, teaching copyright and data protection. Additionally, he is a member of the Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights. Currently, he serves as a resident partner at Panetta Law Firm in Brussels, is pursuing a PhD at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and is acting as Programme & Dissemination Coordinator at the Brussels Privacy Hub. He also teaches data regulation at the EDHEC Business School in Lille (France) and has recently joined the OECD expert group on AI, data and privacy.
