European Council includes ban on nudification tools in its proposal for amending AI Act

The European Council on Friday released its proposal for streamlining the continent's landmark AI Act, adding a prohibition for AI nudification tools and tougher standards for processing some categories of personal data.

The European Council sets the overall political direction for the EU and its actions on the proposal are a significant step forward in what has been a long effort on the continent to simplify the AI Act, the EU’s digital legislative framework and a number of other EU rules regulating businesses.

The European Commission had earlier proposed extending the date for when rules on high-risk AI systems take effect by up to 16 months. It also proposed amendments to the AI Act that would exempt more small companies from some of the regulations.

The several additional amendments the European Council added on Friday will now need to be hammered out with Europe’s Parliament.

The Council said in a press release that it has added a new provision in the AI Act “prohibiting AI practices regarding the generation of non-consensual sexual and intimate content or child sexual abuse material.”

On Wednesday members of Europe’s Parliament greenlit a similar ban in their own proposal, suggesting that the Council and Parliament’s negotiated plan will include the measure.

Europe’s efforts come in the wake of the Grok chatbot generating millions of nonconsensual intimate images that were shared worldwide beginning in late December. In January, the European Commission announced a formal probe of the social media platform X and its Grok feature amid a global backlash to the nudification scandal.

The Council proposal also “reinstates the standard of strict necessity for the processing of special categories of personal data for the purpose of ensuring bias detection and correction,” according to its press release.

Several other additions to the European Commission’s proposal include a mandate reinstating a rule requiring providers to register AI systems in an EU database for high-risk systems if they maintain that their offerings should be exempt from rules for such systems.