Brussels (AFP)

The EU unveiled its artificial intelligence and data battle plan on Wednesday to catch up on the United States and China, and stressed the rights of citizens.

From cars connected to facial recognition, this highly strategic sector is considered to be the technology of the future that will define our daily lives.

Aware of having missed the first internet revolution, which saw the emergence of American giants, like Google and Facebook, or Chinese like Tencent, the EU now wants to play a central role in defining the rules and promoting of its own champions.

With this objective in mind, the European Commission presented its "white paper" on artificial intelligence with possible courses of action.

After a consultation until May 19 of all stakeholders - businesses, unions, civil society, the governments of the 27 member states -, she hopes to make legislative proposals at the end of the year.

"Artificial intelligence is neither good nor bad in itself: it all depends on why and how it is used," said Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager.

- Leader in industrial data -

Brussels first stresses the importance of respecting the fundamental rights of citizens and warns in particular against distortions in the recruitment algorithms leading to discriminatory results.

High risk artificial intelligence systems (health for example) need to be certified, tested and controlled, as are cars, cosmetics and toys, the Commission added.

On mass facial recognition - which awakens the anguish of a "Big Brother" spying on each of the citizens' movements -, Brussels first wants to open the debate to determine under what circumstances it can be authorized.

"My approach is not to make Europe more like China or the United States, my plan is to make Europe more like itself," insisted the Danish Vestager.

In the data field, "the fuel of artificial intelligence" (because it is thanks to them that algorithms are trained, that they learn and determine an action), the EU wants to become a leader.

"We have everything in Europe to win the battle of industrial data", underlined the commissioner in charge of industry, the French Thierry Breton.

Europe has certainly lost the war of personal data, facing the United States and China, but it wants to win those of industrial data, which link objects together thanks to the arrival of 5G.

With its large companies present in all sectors, Europe has a huge database of this type, a considerable asset that the Americans do not have.

Brussels' goal: to create a European "single market" where personal and non-personal data, including confidential and sensitive data, is secure and where businesses and the public sector have easy access to huge amounts of data high quality to create and innovate.

"It will be a space where all data-based products and services will fully respect EU rules and values," promises the EU executive.

Like the "General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)", which strengthens the rights of Internet users and is now cited as an example in the USA and South Korea, the EU wants to establish new standards which become a benchmark international.

© 2020 AFP