The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have outlined how they intend to help firms use AI responsibly as they navigate data protection and financial regulation.

Writing in a recent blog, the heads of both regulators are clear that regulation is not a “brake on innovation”, but can help support it, and they commit to continuing to work with organisations to “understand the challenges firms face when deploying AI, and to explore how [they] can support responsible innovation and personal information use”.

One thing that is already clear from their discussions with business is that many organisations want more and clearer guidance on what constitutes good practice when it comes to AI. To that end, the ICO has announced that, in addition to its existing guidance on AI (see here), it will develop a statutory code of practice for organisations developing or deploying AI and automated decision-making. Equally, the FCA plans to better understand the challenges faced by organisations around AI adoption in a roundtable with smaller firms later this year.

Attention is also drawn to concerns in organisations about the apportionment of responsibility when things go wrong with AI tools that are developed by third parties. Both regulators have respective guidance on this subject (see here and here), but they commit to continuing to work further with other regulators to clarify their expectations in this area.

Finally, the ICO and FCA issue a rallying call for firms and trade bodies to continue to work with them to improve the regulatory landscape and remove any uncertainty, claiming that “we can help firms do things differently. But we need their insight to do things better.”

To read more, click here.