Dragos Tudorache: Dealing with foundation models, data protection, and copyright matters in the EU AI Act

Dragos Tudorache is a Member of the European Parliament and Vice-President of the Renew Europe Group. He is the LIBE rapporteur on the AI Act, and he sits on the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET), the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), the Committee of Inquiry to investigate the use of Pegasus and equivalent surveillance spyware (PEGA), the Subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE), and the European Parliament's Delegation for relations with the United States (D-US). He was the Chair of the Special Committee on Artificial Intelligence in the Digital Age (AIDA).

Dragos began his career in 1997 as a judge in Romania. Between 2000 and 2005, he built and led the legal departments at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the UN missions in Kosovo. After working on justice and anticorruption at the European Commission Representation in Romania, supporting the country’s EU accession, he joined the Commission as an official and, subsequently, qualified for leadership roles in EU institutions, managing a number of units and strategic projects such as the Schengen Information System, Visa Information System, and the establishment of eu-LISA1.

During the European migration crisis, Dragos was entrusted with leading the coordination and strategy Unit in DG-Home, the European Commission Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs, until he joined the Romanian Government led by Dacian Cioloș. Between 2015 and 2017, he served as Head of the Prime Minister’s Chancellery, Minister of Communications and for the Digital Society, and Minister of Interior. He was elected to the European Parliament in 2019. His current interests in the European Parliament include security and defense, artificial intelligence and new technologies, transatlantic issues, the Republic of Moldova, and internal affairs.

We have addressed the following questions around the new EU AI Act:

• Back story behind the final compromise on foundation models, and the chosen thresholds for a higher regulatory burden
• Interplay between AI models and AI systems
• The “open source” differentiator
• How and why the AI Act overlaps with the GDPR, copyright law or product liability laws
• Impact of the Data Act on the development of AI

References:

• The EU AI Act (EU Commission’s proposal)
• Dragos Tudorache (EU Parliament’s official website)