Technology Companies Cooperate With EU Regulators To Comply With Data Protection Rules

JAKARTA - Several leading technology companies in the world intensively interact with regulators in the European Union to ensure their artificial intelligence (AI) products do not violate strict data protection rules in the bloc. This was said by the main Irish data regulator.

Ireland's Data Protection Commission, which is the UE's main regulator for Alphabet's Google, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok, and OpenAI, among others, says their broad authority has not been tested on AI and in the future may be able to force changes to business models to ensure data privacy is protected.

AI poses a number of potential issues for data privacy, two top officials at the Irish Data Protection Commission said in an interview on Tuesday, 28 Meei. Regulators need to decide whether companies are allowed to collect public data from the internet to train AI models, and on the legal basis of what personal data can be used.

AI operators also need to explain how they can ensure individual data rights, including the right to delete their data. The risk of AI models providing incorrect personal data about individuals must also be addressed, Irish officials said.

"There is widespread engagement from leading US technology companies including Google, Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, and OpenAI," said Dale Sunderland, one of two Commissioners of Irish Data Protection. "They are looking for our views on some of their new products in the AI space, especially big language model spaces."

"Google agreed to postpone and make changes to Gemini AI chatbots after consultation with Irish regulators," he said.

While Ireland is the main regulator for most of the largest US internet companies because of the location of their EU headquarters in the country, other regulators can also have votes in decisions through the European Data Protection Council, which is currently working on guidelines on how AI should operate under EU data protection laws.

Model AI operators starting next month must comply with the new important AI Law in the EU. However, they must also comply with the main data protection law of the block, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which can impose fines of up to 4% of the company's total global turnover.

"The national regulator's strength, including us, is quite broad," said Des Hogan, other Data Protection Commissioners in Ireland and the head of the commission. "If they don't do the right due diligence regarding the impact of new products or services they risk having to change product designs in the future."