Tag Archives: AI

Italy’s New AI Law: A Boost for Healthcare Research?

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Italy has recently enacted its own “Artificial Intelligence Act”, set to take effect on October 10, 2025.

You might be wondering: Did we really need another layer of AI regulation? That was our initial reaction, too. But a closer look reveals that the Italian AI Law introduces several interesting provisions, especially in the healthcare sector, that could facilitate research for both public and private entities. Here are some highlights:

1. Healthcare Data Processing as Based on Public Interest

The law explicitly recognizes that the processing of health-related personal data by:

  • Public or private non-profit entities,
  • Research hospitals (IRCCS),
  • Private entities collaborating with the above for healthcare research,

is of “substantial public interest.” This significantly expands the scope of Article 9(2)(g) of the GDPR, offering a clearer legal basis for processing sensitive data in research contexts.

2. Secondary Use of Data

The law introduces a simplified regime for the secondary use of personal data without direct identifiers. In particular:

  • No new consent required, as long as data subjects are informed (even via a website).
  • Automatic authorization unless blocked by the Data Protection Authority within 30 days of notification.

This provision applies only to the entities mentioned above so it is limited in scope, but in any case significantly strengthens the framework for nonprofit research projects.

3. Freedom to Anonymize, Pseudonymize and Synthesize

Under Article 8(4) of the AI Law, processing data for anonymization, pseudonymization, or synthesization is always permitted, provided the data subject is informed. This is a major step forward in enabling privacy-preserving AI research.

4. Guidelines and Governance

The law delegates the creation of technical guidelines to:

  • AGENAS – for anonymization and synthetic data generation.
  • Ministry of Health – for processing health data in research, including AI applications.

It also establishes a national AI platform at AGENAS, which will act as the data controller for personal data collected and generated within the platform.

Final Thoughts

While the GDPR aimed to support research, its implementation often created legal uncertainty and operational hurdles. Italy’s AI Law appears to address some of these gaps, offering a more pragmatic and enabling framework for healthcare research.

AI Breakfasts Continue

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Our breakfast presentation series dedicated to AI continues. Join us for our next event on May 24, 2024 at 9 via Dante in Milan! Our partner, professor Camilla Ferrari of the University of Milan, will be speaking about the impact of AI on contracts.

Curious about past presentations on AI and AI liability? You may find below our slides (in Italian).

life-sciences-practice-group-presentation-on-ai-legislation-engDownload
life-sciences-practice-group-presentazione-su-ia-e-responsabilita-itaDownload

Quick Guide on Legislation In Force and Legislation Stalled

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Just a quick blog post to align our readers on which legislation is in force and which is stalled at the moment:

  • The Ultimate Beneficial Owners register (discussed here), which companies strived to populate by December 11, 2023, is currently on hold due to administrative litigation that currently blocks the application of the register.
  • The European Regulation on Artificial Intelligence, which we already discussed here, is now final. It will enter into force in 2 years.
  • Legislation on payback for medical devices will be scrutinized by the Italian Constitutional Court thanks to decisions of the Lazio Administrative Court issued on November 24, 2023.
  • The Italian Sunshine Act (Law no. 62 of 2022), which we illustrated here, is in force but not yet applicable since the transparency website is not yet live.
  • Next week the Whistleblowing Law (analyzed here and here) will be mandatory for all companies in scope.
  • The Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act are in force.

AI and Healthcare: Recommendations by the Italian Data Protection Authority

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The use of Artificial Intelligence in healthcare continues to grow and it is poised to reach 188 billion by 2030. It also raises many concerns.

The Italian data protection authority (Garante) has recently issued recommendations based on 10 points, which can be found here.

The Garante particularly insists on:

  1. Human in the loop: a human being must be involved in the control, validation or change of the automatic decision;
  2. No algorithmic discrimination: trustworthy AI systems should reduce mistakes and avoid discrimination due to inaccurate processing of health data;
  3. Data quality: health data must be correct and updated. Representation of interested subjects must correctly reflect the population.
  4. Transparency: the interested subject must be able to know the decisional processes based on automated processes and must receive information on the logic adopted so as to be able to understand it (easier said than done!). The Garante also requires that at least an excerpt of the Data Protection Impact Assessment is published.

Other recommendations are not surprising for anyone familiar with the GDPR:

  • Profiling and decisions based on automated processes must be expressly allowed by Member State’s laws.
  • The principles of privacy by design and privacy by default obviously play a big role in healthcare AI systems.
  • Roles of controller and processor must be correctly allocated: in particular, the public administration must ensure that external entities processing data are appointed as data processors.
  • A Data Protection Impact Assessment must be carried out and any risks must be evaluated.
  • Integrity, security and confidentiality of data must be ensured.

Striving for genuine transparency in connection with very complex and rapidly evolving algorythms is not going to be an easy task for the data controller. Similarly, understanding how AI works in a healthcare setting is not going to be simple for patients.

AI Liability Directive: Key Takeaways

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We have already illustrated the new proposed rules for a product liability directive on this blog. We now analyze the proposal for a AI Liability Directive, which offers interesting insights on how liability rules will be tweaked when Artificial Intelligence is concerned. In fact, as noted by the Commission’s explanatory memorandum to the AI Liability Directive, “the ‘black box’ effect can make it difficult for the victim to prove fault and causality and there may be uncertainty as to how the courts will interpret and apply existing national liability rules in cases involving AI“.

These slides may help understanding the AI Liability Directive. If you have questions or doubts, do not hesitate to reach out to us.

EU Policies for the Digital Age

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Confused about the Digital Service Act, the Digital Markets Act, the Data Governance Act and the Data Act? My recent article tries to make sense of all of them:

https://www.mondaq.com/italy/data-protection/1195638/an-overview-of-the-european-union-laws-and-policies-for-the-digital-age

The article also explains that the European Union has a strong vision on principles and policies for the digital age and aspires to a worldwide leadership role in the governance of digital phenomena.

Paola Sangiovanni to Speak on Artificial Intelligence

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Our firm will be attending the EMEA Regional Meeting of Ally Law in Malta next week and on Friday November 15th I will be speaking at a panel discussion titled “Keeping an Eye on AI: Ethical and Regulatory Considerations.” 

Artificial intelligence is a hot topic, also in the med-tech field, and poses exciting legal, ethical and regulatory questions. I am sure this will be an interesting opportunity to discuss them with legal and technical experts. 

 

Artificial intelligence and robotics: a report reflects on legal issues

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With its report issued on May 31, 2016 by the European Parliament (“Report”), the European Union has stepped into the debate on how to deal with artificial intelligence and robotics (“AI&R”). The ultimate goal of the European Parliament is to set forth a common legal framework that may avoid discrepancies arising from different national legislations, which would otherwise create obstacles to an effective development of robotics.

The Report introduces ethical principles concerning the development of AI&R for civil use and proposes a Charter on Robotics, composed by a Code of Ethical Conduct for Robotics Engineers, a Code for Research Ethics Committees and Licenses for Designers and Users.

Furthermore, the Report suggests the creation of a European Agency for AI&R, having an adequate budget, which would be able to generate the necessary technical, ethical and regulatory expertise. Such agency would monitor research and development activities in order to be able to recommend regulatory standards and address customer protection issues in these fields.

The Report, which recommends to the Commission to prepare a proposal of directive on civil law rules on robotics, illustrates many of the issues that society could face in a few decades regarding the relationship between humans and humanoids. In fact, a wide range of robots already can, and could even more in the future, affect people’s life in their roles as care robots, medical robots, human repair and enhancement robots, doctor training robots, and so on.

A further development that may be concerning for lawyers is connected to the announcement, a few days ago, by the University College London that a computer has been able to predict, through a machine-learning algorithm, the decisions by the European Court of Human Rights with a 79% accuracy. Will this result in a more automatic and predictable application of the law?

In order to secure the highest degree of professional competence possible, as well as to protect patients’ health when AI&R is used in the health field, the Report recommends to strengthen legal and regulatory measures such as data protection and data ownership, standardization, safety and security.

One concern arising from the Report is civil liability arising from the use of robots. Should the owner be liable for damages caused by a smart robot? In fact, in the future, more and more robots will be able to make “smart” autonomous decisions and interact with third parties independently, as well as cause damages by their own. Should such damages be the responsibility of the person who designed, trained or operated the robot?

Some argue in favor of a strict liability rule, “thus requiring only proof that damage has occurred and the establishment of a causal link between the harmful behavior of the robot and the damage suffered by the injured party”.

The Report goes even further by asking the Commission to create a compulsory insurance scheme for owners and producers to cover damage potentially caused by robots and a compensation fund guaranteeing compensation for damages, but also allowing investments and donations in favor of robots.

Exciting times lay ahead of us. It remains to be seen if the current legal principles will be sufficient or if new ones will actually be necessary.