EU criminal law could cover "crimes relating to artificial intelligence"
01 May 2019
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could cover "crimes relating to artificial intelligence"
1.5.19
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The Member States have been discussing future possibilities for EU criminal law (Council document, LIMITE 7910/19, pdf), and one issue to be considered is "crimes relating to artifical intelligence, subject to further defining the issue at stake."
The Dutch delegation has also proposed that there should be further analysis of "how artificial intelligence could be used in order to prevent and combat criminal activities."
Member States also think the possibility of setting "minimum rules [at EU level] concerning the definition of criminal offences and sanctions" should be examined for environmental crimes, trafficking in cultural goods, trafficking in human organs and the manipulation of elections.
According to a footnote:
"Other areas mentioned by delegations were 'identity theft' [Slovenia], 'non-conviction based confiscation' [Italy], and 'preventing the facilitation of unauthorised entry, transit and residence, in order to combat illegal immigration' [Croatia]."
The views are included in a paper produced by the Romanian Presidency of the Council on the "future of substantive criminal law," which summarises Member States' responses to a questionnaire.
The summary also underlines that:
"A considerable number of Member States expressed that the Union legislator should cautiously continue to exercise its competence on establishing minimum rules concerning the definition of criminal offences and sanctions...
Many Member States requested that, at this stage, more efforts be deployed on the effectiveness and quality of the implementation of existing EU legislation...
At this point in time, no Member State saw the need to develop a common definition/meaning of certain notions, such as 'serious crime' and 'minor cases'. Several Member States indicated that they should retain flexibility concerning the application of these notions. "
See: NOTE from: Presidency to: Delegations: Future of substantive criminal law - Outcome of discussions of the meeting of the Working Party on Substantive Criminal Law on 21 February 2019 (7910/19, LIMITE, 26 March 2019, pdf)
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