States should place moratoriums on the sale and use of artificial intelligence (AI) systems until adequate safeguards are put in place, UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet said on Wednesday. Urgent action is needed as it can take time to assess and address the serious risks this technology poses to human rights, warned the High Commissioner. Ms. Bachelet also called for AI applications that cannot be used in compliance with international human rights law, to be banned.
On Tuesday, the UN rights chief expressed concern about the ”unprecedented level of surveillance across the globe by state and private actors”, which she insisted was ”incompatible” with human rights. She was speaking at a Council of Europe hearing on the implications stemming from July’s controversy over Pegasus spyware. The Pegasus revelations were no surprise to many people, Ms. Bachelet told the Council of Europe’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, in reference to the widespread use of spyware commercialized by the NSO group, which affected thousands of people in 45 countries across four continents.
The High Commissioner’s call came as her office, OHCHR, published a report that analyses how AI affects people’s right to privacy and other rights, including the rights to health, education, freedom of movement, freedom of peaceful assembly and association, and freedom of expression. The document includes an assessment of profiling, automated decision-making and other machine-learning technologies.
According to the report, States and businesses often rushed to incorporate AI applications, failing to carry out due diligence. It states that there have been numerous cases of people being treated unjustly due to AI misuse, such as being denied social security benefits because of faulty AI tools or arrested because of flawed facial recognition software. The document details how AI systems rely on large data sets, with information about individuals collected, shared, merged and analysed in multiple and often opaque ways. The data used to inform and guide AI systems can be faulty, discriminatory, out of date or irrelevant, it argues, adding that long-term storage of data also poses particular risks, as data could in the future be exploited in as yet unknown ways.
The report also stated that serious questions should be raised about the inferences, predictions and monitoring by AI tools, including seeking insights into patterns of human behaviour. It found that the biased datasets relied on by AI systems can lead to discriminatory decisions, which are acute risks for already marginalized groups.
An increasingly go-to solution for States, international organizations and technology companies are biometric technologies, which the report states are an area “where more human rights guidance is urgently needed”. These technologies, which include facial recognition, are increasingly used to identify people in real-time and from a distance, potentially allowing unlimited tracking of individuals. The report reiterates calls for a moratorium on their use in public spaces, at least until authorities can demonstrate that there are no significant issues with accuracy or discriminatory impacts and that these AI systems comply with robust privacy and data protection standards.
The document also highlights a need for much greater transparency by companies and States in how they are developing and using AI.
Source: The UN
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