Fundamental Rights Impact Assessments in the AI Act: Let’s Get Serious!

  • Workshop
  • Machine Room
  • Wednesday 21.05 — 11:50 - 13:05

Organising Institution

European Center for Not-for-Profit Law / Brussels Privacy Hub / Danish Institute for Human Rights

Netherlands

ECNL is a civil society organisation based in the Hague in the Netherlands working to empower civil society through legal and policy frameworks that protect civic freedoms. Brussels Privacy Hub at VUB is a privacy research centre whose main goals are to produce privacy research of the highest quality; bring together leading thinkers from around the world; and foster an interchange of ideas among privacy stakeholders in a climate of intellectual openness. The Danish Institute for Human Rights is Denmark’s national human rights institution, working to promote and protect rights both at home and abroad.
Under the AI Act, deployers of high-risk AI systems must assess their impacts on fundamental rights, a crucial safeguard for preventing abuses associated with the deployment of risky systems. This workshop brings together civil society, academic experts, AI Office, human rights and equality bodies, and EU governments to test how FRIAs can help deployers, especially in the public sector, to identify, prevent and mitigate fundamental rights risks. Based on existing experiences, a coalition involving CSOs, academics and human rights institutions will present a draft FRIA methodology designed to inform the upcoming AI Office template. In breakout groups will focus on practical aspects and stress-test the model: can it help deployers meaningfully - and easily - assess and measure severity and likelihood of impacts to fundamental rights? By offering a practical, cross-stakeholder discussion, we want to build a shared understanding of the role of FRIAs, unpack common challenges, and devise ways to overcome them without compromising the purpose of the assessment.

Host

Gianclaudio Malgieri

Brussels Privacy Hub / Leiden University - Europe

Gianclaudio Malgieri is an Associate Professor of Law & Technology at Leiden University (the Netherlands), where he conducts research at the eLaw Center for Law and Digital Technologies. He serves as a Board Member of the eLaw center and the Co-Director of the Brussels Privacy Hub, as a Managing Editor of Computer Law and Security Review, and he coordinates “VULNERA“, the International Observatory of Vulnerability in Data Protection. He conducts research on and teaches Data Protection Law, Privacy, AI regulation, Fundamental Rights, Digital Platform regulations and Consumer protection. He is the Project Leader of RESOCIAL, a research project funded by the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA-NWO) on Vulnerability and Resilience on Social Media, involving a consortium of 4 Universities and 11 cooperation partners. Gianclaudio has authored more than 60 publications, including articles in leading international academic journals and a monograph, “Vulnerability and Data Protection Law” (Oxford University Press, 2023). His works have been cited by, inter alia, top international newspapers (The New York Times, The Washington Post, Le Monde, Politico, La Tribune, France Culture, ilSole24Ore, la Repubblica, il Corriere della Sera, Euractiv) but also institutions, e.g. the European Commission and the Council of Europe, the World Economic Forum, the Canadian Government, and the Canadian Data Protection Authority. In 2024, he won the “Policy Leader in AI Award” delivered by CAIPD.Europe at the opening night of the CPDP Conference. In 2023, he received the 35under35 award for digital policy leadership from CIDOB and Banco Santander and in 2020, he was the only EU scholar to receive the FPF Privacy for Policymaker Paper Award. He published in English, Italian and French and some works were translated even into Chinese.

Host

Ioana Tuta

The Danish Institute for Human Rights - Denmark

Ioana Tuta is a Senior Adviser at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, Denmark´s national human rights institution, with over a decade of experience leading advisory and capacity building projects at the intersection of business and human rights. At the DIHR, her work focuses on embedding human rights standards in the technology and financial sectors.