The Vice-President of the European Commission for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age announced the publication of a report on the 5G network security toolkit (see EUROPE 12414/7) by the end of the month. Margrethe Vestager was speaking during a new structured dialogue with members of the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) on Tuesday 23 June.
The exchange of views focused on the major current initiatives, from tracing initiatives related to Covid-19, to the future act on digital services that the Commission is due to present by the end of the year, to artificial intelligence, on which a public consultation is currently underway.
Tracing initiatives
Several MEPs expressed concern about the contact tracing applications implemented in their countries. Denmark’s Karen Melchior (Renew Europe) said that the German and Danish applications “do not correspond to European guidelines”, while Gilles Lebreton (ID, France) pointed out the shortcomings of the French StopCovid application, including the fact that it collects the identifiers of all persons rather than only those within a metre of the application user, he explained. Adrián Vázquez Lázara (Renew Europe, Spain), for his part, deplored the lack of coordination in the development of such applications.
In her replies, Vice-President Vestager recalled that all Member States with the exception of one (France) had opted for a decentralised approach, and that there had been agreement on the technical specifications for interoperability (see EUROPE 12507/14). As for applications that do not meet these technical specifications, she said she is counting on future updates and developments to do so.
Artificial intelligence and facial recognition
Mrs Vestager also recalled that the Commission had just concluded its public consultation on artificial intelligence, during which it received some 1,200 contributions. Responding to Sergey Lagodinsky (Greens/EFA, Germany), who said that IBM, Microsoft and Amazon had all pledged not to offer artificial intelligence services to law enforcement authorities, the Vice-President indicated that this is a “crucial” issue. “Our White Paper raises the question of whether we want to be monitored in the public space, how we walk, how we behave”, she said, recalling that it is important that “we keep the public space for the public and not for the authorities or for surveillance” (see EUROPE 12429/5, 12486/15).
Asked to elaborate on the idea of a risk-based approach, Mrs Vestager suggesting using risk as a reference as far as core values are concerned. And, in response to a question from Evelyn Gebhardt (S&D, Germany), she added that the issue of liability could be part of this debate.
Digital Services Act
The public consultation on the regulation of platforms (Digital Services Act, ex ante rules, and competition rules) is still ongoing until 8 September (see EUROPE 12497/9). Margrethe Vestager pointed out that the process of agreeing on the definition of a “gatekeeper” for these ex ante rules is “delicate”. In response to Tiemo Wölken (S&D, Germany), who feared that new rules would lead to “over-blocking”, she indicated that the decision of the French Council of State on the so-called ‘Avia’ law against online hate would be “taken into account”, and she stressed the importance of providing for appeal systems (see EUROPE 12501/13). (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)