Study on Potential Policy Measures to Promote the Uptake and the Use of AI in Belgium in Specific Economic Domains

Artificial intelligence (AI) and robots are becoming increasingly important in our daily lives. AI systems are already being used for a variety of purposes and deployed in many sectors such as

• traffic,
• healthcare,
• (personalised) marketing,
• manufacturing,
• fraud detection,
• content recommendation,
• optimising business processes, etc.

The rise of AI is no surprise considering its many benefits. Companies in various sectors rely on AI to reduce costs, generate income, enhance product quality and improve competitiveness. AI-powered applications can access a lot more data when making decisions and are more precise and efficient, since they process information faster than humans. Consequently, they are able to perform many tasks ‘better’ than their human counterparts.

AI also offers specific advantages for the sectors in which they are used. For example, autonomous motor vehicles provide people who are unable to operate a vehicle with independent mobility in today’s traffic. In addition, autonomous motor vehicles could drastically reduce the number of road accidents. However, the use of AI also entails many ethical and legal challenges as it affects nearly all legal domains.

Purpose and Content of the Study

This is why the Federal Public Service Economy, S.M.E.s, Self-employed and Energy commissioned a study to research the impact of AI on the regulation in Belgium in a number of economic domains that are part of the FPS Economy’s competences. The researched economic domains are:

• intellectual property,
• competition,
• consumer protection,
• AI safety and cybersecurity,
• data economy,
• electronic Identification and Trust Services for Electronic Authentication (eIDAS),
• legislation on electronic commerce,
•  insurance.

The study was carried out by CiTiP (KU Leuven) and CRIDS (UNamur). It contains three parts:

• The first part is a legal analysis of the impact of AI on the current legal framework in Belgium in a number of economic domains that are part of the FPS Economy’s competences, by means of a gap analysis.
• The second part is a legal-based comparison of the measures taken in our neighbouring countries, the Netherlands, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, in order to tackle the challenges that AI creates in these economic domains.
• Taking into account the results of the first and second part, the third part of the study lists the potential policy measures to promote the development and use of AI in these economic domains in Belgium.

The study constitutes a first step in mapping out the state of affairs of the legislation in these economic domains and in exploring possible options for future developments. It brings this theme to the attention of experts and other interested parties, and provides a basis for them to react.

Presentation of the Study

The FPS Economy, the FPS Policy and Support, AI4Belgium, CiTiP and CRIDS joined hands and organised a webinar on 1 February 2022 to present the study. A panel of experts was invited to comment on the study results. Viewers were given an opportunity to react. The different parts of the webinar are available in English via the links below.

Webinar Part 1:

• Word of welcome by the FPS Economy and the FPS Policy and Support
• Speech by the Belgian Secretary of State for Digitalisation
• General introduction to the study
• Session on intellectual property
• Session on e-commerce, eIDAS and insurance
• Session on AI safety and cybersecurity
• Speech by the Vice-Prime Minister and Minister of Telecommunications
• Closing speech

Webinar Part 2:

• Session on competition law and consumer protection
• Session on data economy