The European Parliament banned the use of artificial intelligence on corporate devices

The European Parliament announced in an email to lawmakers and staff on Monday that it has disabled default artificial intelligence capabilities on corporate devices due to concerns about cybersecurity and data protection vulnerabilities.

According to Politico, this email states that some of these AI assistants use cloud services to do things that the device itself can easily do. Employees have also been advised that as these features evolve and become available on more devices, the exact amount of data shared with service providers is still under review. The European Parliament has said that until this issue is fully clarified, it is better that such capabilities remain inactive.

EU lawmakers ban AI on devices for security reasons

Lawmakers are also advised to take similar precautions on their personal devices, especially if they use them for work. The email cautions people not to allow work documents or private communications to be scanned by AI capabilities, and to exercise caution when installing third-party AI applications and granting access to data.

In a statement to Politico, the European Union Parliament told Politico that the press service of the European Union continuously monitors cyber security threats and implements the necessary measures quickly to prevent them. However, Politico noted that Parliament declined to provide a detailed explanation of which artificial intelligence was disabled or what operating systems the working devices used, citing the sensitive nature of the information.

Blocking artificial intelligence tools, especially in government devices and systems, is not a new issue. For example, DeepSick was banned last year in several countries, including Taiwan, the United States, and Australia, due to national security concerns on government hardware.

Last summer, it was also revealed that the acting director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) had uploaded sensitive documents to the public version of ChatGPT.