European Artificial Intelligence Act: an AI security approach

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to highlight the key technical challenges that derive from the recently proposed European Artificial Intelligence Act and specifically, to investigate the applicability of the requirements that the AI Act mandates to high-risk AI systems from the perspective of AI security. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents the main points of the proposed AI Act, with emphasis on the compliance requirements of high-risk systems. It matches known AI security threats with the relevant technical requirements, it demonstrates the impact that these security threats can have to the AI Act technical requirements and evaluates the applicability of these requirements based on the effectiveness of the existing security protection measures. Finally, the paper highlights the necessity for an integrated framework for AI system evaluation. Findings The findings of the EU AI Act technical assessment highlight the gap between the proposed requirements and the available AI security countermeasures as well as the necessity for an AI security evaluation framework. Originality/value AI Act, high-risk AI systems, security threats, security countermeasures.