As AI technologies progress, concerns regarding potential threats to fundamental rights such as privacy violations or discrimination inevitably arise. Initially proposed in April 2021 and currently in the final phases of the legislative process, one of the main objectives of the EU AI Act is to reduce such threats posed by AI technologies to fundamental rights through its risk-based approach.

After rigorous negotiations, a new impact assessment called Fundamental Rights Impact Assessment (“FRIA”) for AI systems has also been included in the law’s text to further strengthen the protection of EU citizens’ fundamental rights. In this article, we will explore the obligation of deployers of high-risk AI (“HRAI”) systems to conduct FRIA.