FRA: a human rights approach to AI services across Europe

As requested by the European Parliament, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) released a report updating a study made in 2017 about the effects of intelligence services in human rights in Europe. The new document still has the same focus, but it also analyses the progress on the EU legal framework about the topic.

The report is divided in two main sections: first, a study about the intelligence services’ accountability and internal control made specially by the oversight bodies; and after, the measures and remedies designed to ensure surveillance, data protection and the respect of human rights during the services. The document also contains a chapter devoted to the study of case-laws brought to the Court of Justice of the EU, the European Court of Human Rights and the national courts after 2017.

There are currently 18 Oversight bodies in different EU countries and they use five distinct models of oversight, demonstrating that the systems vary greatly across the EU.
The access to remedy proves to remain challenging for people who claim the intelligence services violated their rights, varying among the different EU countries.

As for the main conclusions, the FRA pointed out that not much has changed since 2017 regarding the key aspects of surveillance. The strategy towards the safeguard of fundamental rights in relation to intelligence services remains the strengthening of the oversight and remedy mechanisms.

Find out more about the report here.