As concern about risks and harms related to AI systems continue to grow, a growing chorus of policymakers, industry leaders, and advocates have called for independent AI assessments. This explainer provides an overview of recent proposals for third-party assessment in the United States, including state and federal legislation, executive actions, and industry proposals.
Having third parties assess AI systems might seem like common sense, but crafting effective policies toward this goal can be devilishly tricky. A poorly-constructed ecosystem for third-party assessment could easily fail to consider the most consequential mechanisms of risk, neglect the AI harms that most impact people, or do more to protect AI companies than people.
Not All Guardrails Are Created Equal: Comparing Content Safety and Copyright Filtering
As courts and policymakers work through questions about chatbot liability, they should be wary of analogies that flatten meaningful technical differences. Copyright filtering and safety intervention share real challenges around ambiguity and evasion, but they diverge in what each control must assess, how each manifests over the course of a conversation, and how much can be verified from the outside.
The norms of conversational advertising are being written right now by companies. Policy should be written alongside them, and it should start with recognizing that surreptitious manipulation at scale built on intimate information is itself a privacy harm, and a privacy law can, in part, solve some of those issue
April saw Europe’s AI policy debate reach a critical juncture, with final negotiations on the AI Omnibus underway and key disagreements still unresolved around scope and safeguards. Rapid technological developments, such as Anthropic’s Mythos model, are also intensifying pressure on EU institutions to ensure their governance framework can keep pace. CDT Europe’s April AI Bulletin keeps you up to speed on the latest EU AI governance developments.
CDT Europe’s Feedback to the European Parliament and Council’s Negotiating Positions on the Digital Omnibus on AI
In the context of the ongoing trilogue negotiations on the AI Omnibus proposal, the Centre for Democracy and Technology Europe publishes its feedback to proposed amendments by both the European Parliament and Council. Our comments aim to inform ongoing discussions to ensure that the final text as agreed upon by the co-legislators upholds fundamental rights and the public interest.
Potential Avenues for Redress for AI-related Harms: A Visual Explanation
Based on our findings in the report "A Long Road Ahead — Effective Remedies for Artificial Intelligence Harms in the European Union", this series presents visualisations and accompanying explanations of potential avenues to redress for AI-related harms under core EU legislation, starting with the AI Act.
Joint Open Letter: Preserving the Scope and Integrity of the AI Act
In the context of the ongoing trilogue negotiations, CDT Europe joined 32 other civil society organisations and individuals in a public letter raising concerns about proposed changes to Annex I of the AI Act in the European Parliament’s position on the AI omnibus.
March brought major developments in Europe’s AI policy landscape, with policymakers advancing positions on the AI Omnibus, copyright in the age of generative AI, and new rules on AI-generated content. From trilogue preparations to fresh consultations, CDT Europe’s March AI Bulletin keeps you up to speed on the latest EU AI governance developments.
EU AI Act Brief – Pt. 5, General-Purpose AI Models
CDT Europe has been publishing a series of blog posts and briefing papers on the EU AI Act and what it means for human rights. Here is the fifth post of the series where we examine General Purpose AI models (GPAI) and how they are regulated under the AI Act and additional processes and documents.
From Risk Mitigation to App Bans: Assessing EU Legislation’s Potential to Combat AI-generated Image Abuse
Following the Grok scandal in late December 2025, CDT Europe assessed the potential of key EU legislation (i.e., DSA and AI Act) in combating the proliferation of "nudifying" tools and AI-generated image abuse, which mostly targets women and minors.
