The European Union has officially approved the Artificial Intelligence Act, a comprehensive set of rules governing the activities of technology companies. The new law, which took two years to develop, bans certain uses of artificial intelligence and imposes strict requirements on developers’ activities.

After two years of discussions, the EU has taken a decisive step towards regulating AI by passing a comprehensive Artificial Intelligence Law. This legislative act, which officially comes into force on August 1, 2024, establishes a strict framework for the development and implementation of AI technologies in the EU. According to The Verge , the deadline for the implementation of this law is February 2, 2025, after which tech companies must stop using practices that threaten citizens’ rights. The full text of the law is available on the EU’s official website.

The new law prohibits certain uses of AI. In particular, it prohibits the use of applications that threaten citizens’ rights, such as biometric classification to determine sexual orientation or religion. It also prohibits the unauthorized removal of images of individuals from the internet or recordings from security cameras.

Developers of AI systems must provide transparency about how their technology works, including providing summaries of the data used to train the systems. Nine months after it comes into effect, companies will have a code of practice — a set of rules that spell out compliance requirements, criteria, key performance indicators, and more. It also introduces the concept of “universal AI systems,” such as chatbots, that must respect copyright and be transparent about their algorithms.

The law’s compliance timelines show most of the rules must be implemented by August 2026, but some high-risk AI systems integrated into critical infrastructure or affecting employment, health care and justice have a longer compliance deadline than August 2020.

Failure to comply with the AI ​​Law will result in serious fines. Violating prohibitions on certain uses of AI will result in a fine of €35 million (approximately $38 million) or 7% of the violating company’s global annual turnover, whichever is greater. Other violations will result in smaller fines but are also significant.