“We are working on a Constitution of digital Europe, a Charter of Digital Rights that is valid for every citizen of the Union, and we hope to present the complete proposal to the EU Parliament by the end of 2021 “: so said Roberto Viola during today’s episode of Tech Talk, during a long remote chat with Riccardo Luna, director of Italian Tech.
For about ten years, Viola has been general manager of Dg Connect, which is the structure of the European Commission that within the EU deals with everything that has to do with digital. And the project of an Internet Bill of Rights is perhaps the most ambitious of the many that his team is carrying out: “We have opened an online public consultation to collect people’s proposals, even using artificial intelligence to select the most interesting ones. – he said during the interview – and we hope to see it approved at the beginning of 2022 “. The idea is to draw up a list of fundamental and inviolable rights, such as privacy or “the right to the future”, understood as the right to have a future: “We do not want to live in a world where we arrive at the hospital and an algorithm evaluates our chances of survival and therefore whether it is worth taking care of us or not “.
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Already 250 million Green Pass
This is (perhaps) the most ambitious project, but not the only one: Dg Connect is also behind the question of Green Pass, the certificate that allows you to travel within the European Union without restrictions for those who are vaccinated against the coronavirus, those who have recovered or who have had a recent negative swab. It started on July 1, and is already a success: “To date (so in just over 24 hours, ed) we have already issued 250 million, equal to more or less half of the EU population. “They succeeded because the agency headed by Viola, made up of a thousand people, managed to dialogue with the governments of individual countries and ensure that governments of individual countries talked to each other: “It was essential that it worked – said Viola, who from 1985 to 1999 worked at ESA, the European Space Agency – because it was essential to restart tourism and therefore the economy, at least in part “.
And they succeeded because the Green Pass respects privacy: “The data of the single person is sealed inside the QR Code, and they don’t come out of there“. Not even when the certificate is checked by the police:” The verification operation also works with the two smartphones (that of the controlled and that of the parent, ed) in Airplane mode, because there is no one between the two data exchange “.
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Privacy, central node of the Europe of the future
After all, data confidentiality is a fundamental game in the EU today and especially tomorrow: “We imagine it as green and digital, but it cannot exist as we want it without respect for privacy – explained Viola – It is a gift that we must protect and guard “. However without excess: “We need a balance with other needs, such as health, but also with economic issues. We may wish not to be tracked while browsing online and not accept being profiled by advertising, but we cannot expect to read the news exclusively for free“. Why?” Because somehow newspapers have to survive. “
It is to this anyway, to the protection of privacy, which is also linked to the Digital Service Act, which aims to redesign digital services within Europe: “By the end of 2021 we will have the final text and by the beginning of 2022 we should arrive at approval, more or less a year after the presentation of the first drafts”. What will change for people and companies? “Whether large or small, they will have equal rights but different duties. Because it is right that the largest (and the reference is obviously to giants such as Facebook e Google, ed) have greater responsibilities than what they do online and how they treat us online. Because with greater attention and greater investments, perhaps certain distortions of the past could have been avoided “.
And it is to avoid distortions that the EU is already working for regulate the use of artificial intelligence in the community territory. Even raising more than one eyebrow: “Despite criticism and perplexity, 90% of practical applications of AI will not be touched or influenced by the rules we are writing – Viola told us – And yet we want to intervene if these technologies put the people or their fundamental freedoms “. In practice, “we will not tolerate them being used for surveillance and social control or for any form of conditioning and we also want to protect the children from possible manipulations. ”Which is a starting point, but it already seems like a good ending point.
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