The government will have to draft and pass a specific law to move forward with the agency that will oversee AI-related issues.
Raquel Holgado
20 Minutos
January 3, 2022
One of the Spanish government's New Year's resolutions is to create the Spanish Agency for the Supervision of Artificial Intelligence, as stated in the General State Budget Law (PGE) published in the Official State Gazette (BOE). This project will be allocated 5 million euros to research into the dangers that can arise from these algorithms.
This state agency will be responsible for taking "measures aimed at minimising significant risks to the safety and health of individuals, as well as to their fundamental rights, that may arise from the use of artificial intelligence systems".
Although Spain plans to create the Spanish Agency for the Oversight of Artificial Intelligence, there are still a few months to go before it sees the light of day. They must first draft a specific law and approve and publish their statutes for their project to be possible, as required by Law 40/2015 on the Legal Regime of the Public Sector.
In the 100th additional provision of the Ley de PGE, they explain that this new agency "shall act with full organic and functional independence from the Public Administrations, in an objective, transparent and impartial manner". This is already done by other Spanish agencies, such as the Spanish Data Protection Agency, with which the Spanish Agency for the Supervision of Artificial Intelligence should coordinate.
On the other hand, the Spanish government also reports that the new agency will have "public legal personality, its own assets and autonomy in its management, with administrative powers". Thus, the Spanish Agency for the Supervision of Artificial Intelligence will have sanctioning capacity, but nothing more is known yet regarding this issue.
As they have explained, their functions will include the following: "The development, supervision and monitoring of projects within the framework of the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy, as well as those promoted by the European Union, in particular those related to the regulatory development of artificial intelligence and its possible uses".