Considering Fundamental Rights in the European Standardisation of Artificial Intelligence: Nonsense or Strategic Alliance?
This work tackles a regulatory gap in European AI policy, proposing incremental changes to standardize fundamental rights protections.
The paper addresses the lack of guidelines linking AI standards to fundamental rights in European regulations, arguing that harmonized AI standards should incorporate fundamental rights considerations to mitigate high risks from AI systems.
In the European context, both the EU AI Act proposal and the draft Standardisation Request on safe and trustworthy AI link standardisation to fundamental rights. However, these texts do not provide any guidelines that specify and detail the relationship between AI standards and fundamental rights, its meaning or implication. This chapter aims to clarify this critical regulatory blind spot. The main issue tackled is whether the adoption of AI harmonised standards, based on the future AI Act, should take into account fundamental rights. In our view, the response is yes. The high risks posed by certain AI systems relate in particular to infringements of fundamental rights. Therefore, mitigating such risks involves fundamental rights considerations and this is what future harmonised standards should reflect. At the same time, valid criticisms of the European standardisation process have to be addressed. Finally, the practical incorporation of fundamental rights considerations in the ongoing European standardisation of AI systems is discussed.