Mending Lacunas in the EU’s GDPR and Proposed Artificial Intelligence Regulation

The European Union (EU) is leading in the regulation of data privacy and artificial intelligence through the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the proposed European Commission (EC) regulation, and the proposed European Parliament (EP) regulations concerning Artificial Intelligence (AI). The EU also regulates AI through ethical aspects and Intellectual Property Rights as well as the Council of Europe’s conclusions concerning the use of sandboxes regulations and experimentation clauses. This article highlights the EU’s missed opportunities to create synergies between the GDPR and the proposed AI regulations, given that in several instances they deal with issues that must be regulated from an AI perspective, while simultaneously ensuring data protection of EU citizens. In particular, the EU’s ad hoc approach to AI regulation creates lacunas because of its failure to fully integrate the essential components of AI data and algorithm within a regulatory framework.