Hunting fences restrict access to 470,000 decares of land in Bulgaria

This study, commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the JURI and PETI Committees, analyses the use of biometric techniques from an ethical and legal perspective. Biometric techniques raise a number of specific ethical issues, as an individual cannot easily change biometric features, and as these techniques tend to intrude into the human body and ultimately the human self. Further issues are more generally associated with large-scale surveillance, algorithmic decision making, or profiling. The study analyses different types of biometric techniques and draws conclusions for EU legislation.

Source : © European Union, 2021 – EP

Europol has been at the forefront of fighting serious and organised crime in the EU. However, with digital transformations and a global interconnectedness emerging, security threats have become more complex. Against this background, the Commission has published a recast proposal of the Europol Regulation with the objective of, inter alia, (1) enabling Europol to support Member States and their investigations through big data analysis; (2) enabling Europol to directly exchange data with private parties; and (3) strengthening Europol’s role on research and innovation. While the Commission made efforts to analyse the problems at hand in the accompanying Impact Assessment, more detailed information on the scale and size of the different problems would have been useful. The Commission conducted several targeted consultations for this initiative, but did not carry out a mandatory 12-week open public consultation. The IA assesses relevant impacts, including fundamental rights impacts.

Source : © European Union, 2021 – EP

AI has become a key enabling technology in public services and its use has increased over the past two years.Ensuring explainabilty of AI systems in public services is crucial but difficult to achieve in case of black-box algorithms. In AI applications in public services, focus is on law enforcement, surveillance and process optimisation. AI for front-end public services seems less of a priority. There is a growing public concern over the development and use of AI in society. With the increase of its use, the potential for errors and harms also increases.The public sector should lead the way in creating trustworthy AI. Regulatory sandboxing and pre-procurement are key for creating trustworthy AI for public services.

Source : © European Union, 2021 – EP