THE COMMISSION’S FIRST DEBATES ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

On the morning of March 20, 2025, the first discussions began within the EU Commission on artificial intelligence.

Data protection for minors: essential or dangerous?

The debates began with a first proposed article: “Article 1: All member states allow for the use of personal surveillance systems by national security agencies. The data collected will remain strictly confidential and governments will be able to access them only under special circumstances.” The first amendment focused on the protection of minors’ data: “Data can only be collected from individuals over 18 years old, at specific places only if concrete suspicion is placed and a judge grants a warrant,” and the fact that if a minor is suspected of a crime, the permission of their legal representatives is required to access the data (phone, etc.) of the person concerned.
This amendment was mainly drafted by France. France played a crucial role in the debates, defending above all the issue of data protection for minors and standing firm against other countries that opposed this criterion. Various countries, such as Finland and Austria, raised important points, highlighting the dangers of this measure: if a minor is suspected of having committed a serious crime and disappears, it is necessary to have access to their personal data in order to find them or find evidence. France responded well by assuring that in such extreme cases, the authorization of legal guardians would no longer be necessary. And for other cases, it assured that there would be other solutions for conducting investigations in the event of refusal to share personal data.
Finland even went so far as to find another article of law, setting the age of data protection through the authorization of legal guardians at 16, which is younger than the age proposed by the French delegation. This led to a further revision of the amendment, but France once again responded constructively, pointing out that in Europe, the age of majority is set at 18, a factor to be taken into account and justifying the age proposed by the French delegation (18).

Nationalization of data or sharing across the continent?

Debates continued to be intense around the second amendment proposed by Austria, contradicting the nationalization of data. Indeed, in the proposed article, it is emphasized that “the use of personal surveillance systems by national
security agencies.“ Instead, Austria proposes ”by European security agencies.” The debates then began: Austria put forward the idea that there are “potential arms in other states,” so that the idea of sharing data between all European countries could lead to various innovations and could be beneficial. Luxembourg supported this proposal, stating that sharing data between all European countries is an opportunity “to become a major actor, against China for example…” if only nations do something nationally…
France, which did not record this amendment, responded that it prioritizes data protection over innovation: “We value the protection of our citizens over innovation,” and that sharing all data from each country with all others could be “more confusing,” and that “it’s a huge project to share all the data with everyone’s” and concluded that it is better for each country to be “able to control its information and defend itself.”
To which the smaller countries, such as Cyprus and Malta, replied: for them, it is not possible “to have our own national system and control our data,” so it is better for them too to have a system of sharing across the whole of Europe. This amendment was then accepted, with 12 votes.

These were the main debates that took place in the AI committee this morning, promising an exciting EUROmad+ with countries such as France and Finland frequently opposing each other.

Prune EL KOUCH