During the plenary session (10-13 February 2020) of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, MEPs debate (10/01) and vote on ensuring consumer protection, and free movement of goods and services. Statements by Petra DE SUTTER (Greens/EFA, BE), Chair of the IMCO Committee, Thierry BRETON, European Commissioner for Internal Market, Pablo ARIAS ECHEVERRÍA (EPP, ES), Maria Manuel LEITÃO MARQUES (S&D, PT) and Dita CHARANZOVÁ (RE, CZ). The resolution is approved during the vote on Wednesday.

Free movement of services (T2)

Strasbourg

debate

plenary session

vote

CHARANZOVÁ, Dita (Renew, CZ)

McGUINNESS, Mairead (EPP, IE)

consumers' protection (T)

use of robotics and artificial intelligence (T)

Free movement of goods (T2)

ARIAS ECHEVERRÍA, Pablo (EPP, ES)

DE SUTTER, Petra (Greens/EFA, BE)

LEITÃO-MARQUES, Maria-Manuel (S&D, PT)

BRETON, Thierry (FR, EC)

Automated decision-making processes - Ensuring consumer protection, and free movement of goods and services: extracts from the debate (10/02) and extracts from the vote

Title: Automated decision-making processes - Ensuring consumer protection, and free movement of goods and services: extracts from the debate (10/01) and extracts from the vote

SOUNDBITE (English), Petra DE SUTTER (Greens/EFA, BE), Chair of the IMCO Committee, AI and automated decision-making offers a great potential in terms of innovative and higher quality products and services. But at the same time various challenges need to be addressed in order to realize this potential. First and foremost, services and goods using AI and automated decision-making create the risk of consumers being misled or discriminated against, for example in relation to differentiate the pricing. Will consumers be aware of the fact that the price displayed on their screen was adapted to their estimated purchasing power?

SOUNDBITE (English), Petra DE SUTTER (Greens/EFA, BE), Are consumers aware that decisions affecting their professional, financial, or personal lives are in fact not made by humans? And if they feel wrong, will they be able to demand a human review? Will human ultimately be responsible for final decisions or will they be able to reverse them? So my first question to you is how is the Commission planning to ensure that consumers are protected from unfair or discriminatory commercial practices or from potential risks entailed by AI-driven professional services.

SOUNDBITE (French), Thierry BRETON, European Commissioner for Internal Market, The commission is presenting on February 19 a white paper, which aims to be useful for consultation: it will obviously express our positions, but it is also the way to continue the debate we have this evening and extend it to you all. It will be also able to provide solutions together to this absolutely essential development which marks our time.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Pablo ARIAS ECHEVERR&#205;A (EPP, ES), Transparency must be the cornerstone of any initiative related to this technology. Without it consumers will not have confidence and we will not achieve its development and therefore the competitive advantage that can give us with respect to our competitors. Only if we pay attention, we look from the appropriate perspective and we are flexible, we will lead the development of AI and create the ecosystem that we Europeans ask for and that we need.

SOUNDBITE (Portuguese), Maria Manuel LEIT&#195;O MARQUES (S&amp;D, PT), Machine learning still has difficulties related to tasks that we do not consider easy to solve. For example a neural network whose aim is distinguishing between dogs and wolves learnt to differentiate them not by the common difference between these two animals, but only by their environment. So the images with grass were classified as dogs and those with snow as wolves. This example could look harmless, but these are the same learning mechanisms currently implemented on digital platforms and realize automated decisions. These mechanism suggests us products or services making some of them more visible and hiding others.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dita CHARANZOV&#193; (RE, CZ), We need a measured approach, we need to resist the temptation of over legislating too quickly for this fast evolving technologies. This would not only hinder innovation and the development in Europe, but also create more problems than it would solve. Equally we must not generalize our approach. The rules governing algorithms should be proportionate to the risk taken in using that algorithm. There is a difference between the algorithm of a power grade and the algorithm in a video game.

SOUNDBITE (English), Mairead MCGUINNESS (EPP, IE), Vice-President of the EP, We can now move to a motion for resolution from the Committee on Internal Market on ensuring consumer protection, and free movement of goods in automated decision-making processes.

SOUNDBITE (English), Mairead MCGUINNESS, Vice-President of the EP, The resolution as a whole: in favour. Against. Abstentions. And that is adopted. Thank you.