development," Nemitz writes.

The quest for an ethical approach. For years, Europe has called for a more comprehensive approach that encompasses privacy and addresses ethical issues in the scope of the digital society. The EDPS in its strategy for 2015–2019 sets out the goal to develop an ethical dimension to data protection. 4 In order to reach the goal, it has established the EAG with the mandate to steer a reflection on the ethical implications that the digital world emerging from the present technological trends puts forward. EDPS 4/2015 Opinion “ Toward a new digital ethics,” 3 identifies the fundamental right to privacy and the protection of personal data as core elements of the new digital ethics necessary to preserve human dignity as stated in Article 1 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Opinion also calls for a big data protection ecosystem that shall involve developers, businesses, regulators, and individuals in order to provide ‘future-oriented regulation,’ ‘ accountable controllers,' ‘ privacy-con-scious engineering,' and ‘empowered individuals.'

In its 2018 report, 6 the EAG has
provided a broader set of reflections
on the notion of digital ethics that
address the “fundamental questions
about what it means to make claims
about ethics and human conduct in
the digital age, when the baseline
conditions of humanness are under
the pressure of interconnectivity,
algorithmic decision-making, ma-
chine-learning, digital surveillance,
and the enormous collection of per-
sonal data.” In March 2018, the EGE
released a statement on “artificial
intelligence, robotics, and ‘autono-
mous’ systems” in which it urges
an overall rethinking of the values
around which the digital society is to
be structured. 5 Computer scientists,
besides other societal actors, are
called to join this effort by contribut-
ing theories, methods, and tools to
build trustable and societal-friendly
systems. “Advances in AI, robotics
and so-called ‘autonomous’ technol-
ogies have ushered in a range of in-
creasingly urgent and complex moral
questions,” the EGE states. “Current
efforts to find answers to the ethical,
The General Data Protection Reg-
ulation (GDPR), which is the most
advanced in the world regulation on
personal data protection, is Europe’s
most relevant achievement so far.
By comparison, the state of Califor-
nia recently passed a digital privacy
law that will go into effect in January
2020. Although more limited in scope
than GDPR, the law is considered one
of the most comprehensive in the
U.S. 20 In a recent paper, “Constitu-
tional Democracy and Technology in
the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” 19
Paul Nemitz, Principal Advisor of the
European Commission, claimed that
“The EU GDPR is the first piece of leg-
islation for AI." He provides a com-
prehensive account of the debate and
of the process that accompanied the
formulation and adoption of GDPR.
Nemitz points out that as happened
with GDPR concerning personal
data protection, AI and autonomous
technologies need to be regulated by
laws as far as individual fundamental
rights and democracy of society are
concerned.

This would lead to accept AI-based autonomous technologies only “if by design, the principles of democracy, rule of law, and compliance with fundamental rights are incorporated in AI, thus from the outset of program

The GDPR aims
to give individuals
control over
their personal data
and to provide
a unifying regulation
within the EU
for international
business.