Our grantees have helped put fundamental rights and democratic freedoms at the heart of policymaking on AI. They’ve brought marginalised communities such as migrants, autistic people and sex workers into the debate. And they’re exploring how AI is intersecting in criminal justice, climate, health and more.
As well as offering financial support, we help organisations build networks, gain skills and work collaboratively to drive change.
Issued: Nov 2022|2 yearsClosed
Ada Lovelace Institute
€88.000 Open call 2022
United Kingdom
Ada Lovelace Institute informed public and political debates on the AI Liability Directive and AI Act (“the AI Framework”) and other relevant laws by their research on their implications and impact on people and society. Shaped technical standards of the AI Framework to include fundamental rights. Developed and advocated for audit, impact assessment and evaluation methodologies that can be used to ensure the effective implementation of regulation.1) Ensure that public and political debates on the AI Liability Directive and AI Act (“the AI Framework”) and other relevant laws are well informed by interdisciplinary research into their implications and impact on people and society.
2) Support the effective implementation of the AI Framework through participation in and shaping of standard development mechanisms to ensure technical standards embed fundamental rights.
3) Develop and advocate for audit, impact assessment and evaluation methodologies that can be used to ensure the effective implementation of regulation.
This grant supported Eticas to consolidate, increase and make more visible its policy and advocacy efforts, including its community-led AI auditing initiatives with civil society organisations and work at the policy level on AI regulation and transparency in Spain and the EU. Eticas published an open guide to adversarial auditing, sharing their best practices for evaluating algorithms.
EuroMed Rights worked on the intersection of technology and migration, significantly increasing its and members’ capacity, expending partnerships and conducting new research.
Their research analysed the current state of tech deployment at the Spanish border, and mapped tech deployment at the EU’s external borders since the early 2000s. The grant also supported EuroMed Rights’ participation in joint advocacy on the AI Act, including through the #ProtectNotsurveil coalition.
With this grant, Fair Trials Europe launched a simulation criminal prediction tool, with over 5000 people completing the simulation, and more than 2000 people reaching out to the Members of the European Parliament to raise awareness about criminal justice amidst the AI act negotiations.
Together with allies, Fair Trials Europe successfully advocated for a partial ban on predictive policing in the European AI Act. They also engaged in local advocacy and research concerning policing tools used in a school in Bristol.
With this grant, Global Health Advocates focused on providing targeted policy recommendations to French decision-makers on regulating AI technologies used in the healthcare sector. Its first analysis report on the challenges of regulating AI in healthcare in France, titled “Soignons nos algos”, accompanied by a campaign urging to adopt a public label for AI systems used in healthcare.
Informed discussion around regulation of AI in Europe and beyond, and coordinated and engaged civil society coalions, including #ProtectNotSurveil focusing on AI and migration. Grant impact included the European Parliament adopting civil society's position on the AI Act, with final text adopted by the EU. Access Now worked in coalition with other civil society organisations to mainstream the debate about prohibitions in the AI Act.
HAI became a trusted expert on AI and health and shared their experise with civil society and policymakers. HAI developed a report and advocacy materials on the impact of the EU AI Act on AI used in healthcare, and worked to debunk MedTech industry led narratives aiming to exempt health tech from regulation, which especially impacts vulnerable people. It led advocacy efforts for classification of more health related Artificial Intelligence (AI) as high-risk under the Act.
This grant supported EDRi's AI Act advocacy and its coalition-building, and let EDRi give financial support to members and partners in the EU AI Act coalition, and commission new research on AI and bias. EDRi's push for a fundamental rights-based approach strongly influenced the European Parliament's position and won many safeguards in the final AI Act, including partial bans on biometric recognition and emotion recognition technologies.
Foxglove backed Amazon.com workers in the UK and Germany, getting their stories into the press and challenging algorithmic micromanagement that harms their health. It filed a world-first constitutional challenge in Kenya for Facebook content moderator and whistle-blower Daniel Motaung, and resisted Facebook's threat of criminal contempt with help from a coalition of 80 groups. It also supported disabled people in challenging a secretive UK algorithm that unfairly flags them for benefits fraud.
