On December 10, 2020, the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (EP) adopted new guidelines on the use of AI for military purposes and its use in the health and justice sectors.

On November 27, 2020, Brigadier-General Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the head of the Iranian military’s nuclear program, was shot and killed in a convoy outside Tehran.

On December 2, 2020, the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, officially presented one of the fundamental proposals of the Spain Digital Plan 2025 launched last July and one of the most principal components of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan for the Spanish economy; the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy.

On November 2020, the French Ministry of the Interior published a White Paper on internal security. The fourth part of the paper addresses the role of AI in internal security.

On November 19, 2020, the United-Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) Centre for AI and Robotics released its latest collaborative report on Malicious Uses and Abuses of Artificial Intelligence

On November 17, 2020, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the White House released a “Memorandum for the heads of executive departments agencies” to provide “guidance to all Federal agencies to inform the development of regulatory and non-regulatory approaches regarding technologies and industrial sectors that are empowered or enable by artificial intelligence (AI) and consider ways to reduce barriers to the development and adoption of AI technologies”.

It is the ALICEM application’s use of biometric data that has been challenged by an association at the French Supreme Administrative Court and a decision has just been announced.

On April 1st -2nd, 2021, a colloquium will take place on Artificial Intelligence and Normative Challenges: International and Comparative Legal Perspectives, organised by The Faculty of Law at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Kalliopi Koufa Foundation for the Promotion of International and Human Rights Law, with the support of the European Society of International Law (ESIL).

On October 22, 2020, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (CoE) adopted a provisional version of Resolution 2356 (2020) Legal aspects of “autonomous” vehicles.

On October 22, 2020, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a provisional version of Resolution 2342 (2020) Justice by algorithm – the role of artificial intelligence in policing and criminal justice systems.

With 2021 shaping up to be a decisive year for EU Regulation of AI, the public debate on this particular issue is already well underway.

On October 20, 2020, the EP adopted three resolutions on a framework of ethical aspects of artificial intelligence, a civil liability regime for AI and a response to intellectual property rights challenged by these systems.