EU Parliament approves landmark Artificial Intelligence Act

March 13 (UPI) -- The European Parliament Wednesday overwhelmingly approved its landmark Artificial Intelligence Act which is designed to place restrictions on and ban some applications of AI it deems "high-risk."

The measure was approved on a vote of 523 to 46, with 49 abstentions.

"The EU has delivered. We have linked the concept of artificial intelligence to the fundamental values that form the basis of our societies," EU Civil Liberties co-rapporteur and MEP Dragos Tudorache of Romania said in a statement.

But he said much work still lies ahead because AI "will push us to rethink the social contract at the heart of our democracies, our education models, labour markets, and the way we conduct warfare."

The new rule would ban "certain AI applications that threaten citizens' rights" including ones that scrape facial images from the Internet of CCTV footage to create databases to be used for facial recognition.

It also forbids the use of AI "emotion recognition in the workplace and schools, social scoring, predictive policing (when it is based solely on profiling a person or assessing their characteristics), and AI that manipulates human behavior or exploits people's vulnerabilities will also be forbidden."

The EU said law enforcement can only deploy AI biometric identification systems "if strict safeguards are met, e.g. its use is limited in time and geographic scope and subject to specific prior judicial or administrative authorization."

The law specifies law enforcement can use the AI tools in targeted searches of missing persons or to prevent terrorist attacks.

EU leaders said in December that the Artificial Intelligence Act would make sure that AI systems in the European market would be safe and would respect fundamental rights and EU values.

"We finally have the world's first binding law on artificial intelligence, to reduce risks, create opportunities, combat discrimination, and bring transparency. Thanks to Parliament, unacceptable AI practices will be banned in Europe and the rights of workers and citizens will be protected," Internal Market Committee co-rapporteur and MEP Brando Benifei of Italy said.

The law requires AI systems to comply with copyright law and meet transparency requirements while clearly labeling AI content in images, audio and video.

The EU Parliament said that for high-risk AI systems including critical infrastructure, law enforcement, justice and democratic processes, employment, essential private and public services like healthcare and banking among others, human oversight must be assured.

Those systems will also be required to assess and reduce risks, maintain use logs and be transparent and accurate in their use.

The language of the law must still be scrutinized by lawyers before going into force, the EU said.