The Council of Europe Committee on AI has finalized the text for a Convention on Artificial Intelligence, Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law. CAIDP is disappointed that the text of the Committee did not fully reach the AI systems that have the greatest impact, those that are deployed in the private sector. The national security and defense exemptions are also of concern. But we recognize the significance of the outcome.

When the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe decided at the end of 2021 to establish the Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAI) with the mandate to elaborate a legally binding instrument of a transversal character in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), such initiative created a lot of hopes and expectations. For the first time, an international convention ‘based on the Council of Europe’s standards on human rights, democracy and the rule of law and other relevant international standards’ would regulate activities developed in the area of AI.