Artificial Intelligence Bill: first approval by the Senate

A first analysis of the bill on artificial intelligence currently under review by the Italian Parliament.

Legislative procedure

On the night of Thursday 20 March 2025, the Senate of the Italian Republic approved the bill on artificial intelligence (the “AI Bill”) that will supplement, at domestic level, the rules laid down in Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (better known as “AI Act”). 

Almost a year after it was submitted to Parliament, the AI Bill has been given the green light by the Senate with minor amendments. The ball is now in the Chamber of Deputies’ court. However, in order for the provisions to be actually implemented, it will be necessary to wait (even after final approval by Parliament) for the Government to adopt legislative decrees on the matters delegated to it. 

The (long) time taken by the Senate to approve the AI Bill can also be explained in light of the opinion issued by the European Commission, which identified a number of inconsistencies with the AI Act. As outlined below, such inconsistencies have been only partially resolved.

The bill

The objective of the AI Bill is to further strengthen the level of protection in relation to the use of artificial intelligence with specific reference to certain areas and sectors.

The structure of the AI Bill is as follows.

The first part establishes the guiding principles and defines the national strategy in relation to the use of artificial intelligence.

The second part instead contains specific-sector provisions, aimed at increasing the level of transparency in the following areas and sectors:

• healthcare  and scientific research;
• world of work and intellectual professions;
• judicial activities;
• public administration;
• national security;
• user protection and copyright.

The third section is dedicated to governance and identifies the competent national authorities in this regard, namely:

• the Italian Agency for Digital Italy (AgID), as notifying authority; and
• the Italian Agency for National Cybersecurity (ACN), as supervisory authority.

Finally, the fourth part is dedicated to criminal protection and establishes a series of aggravating circumstances in relation to the use of artificial intelligence systems in the commission of certain crimes, while introducing a new type of crime that punishes the unlawful dissemination of so-called deep fakes.

Changes to the original text

Compared to the original version of 23 April 2024, the new text of the AI Bill has undergone few changes, all of minor importance, including, in particular, the following:

• the removal of autonomous definitions of the terms “artificial intelligence systems” and “artificial intelligence models”, while referring to the definitions in the AI Act;
• the processing of personal data for research and clinical trial purposes will be specifically regulated by a decree issued by the Ministry of Health;
• the granting of specific powers to the government to set out comprehensive regulations on the use of data, algorithms and mathematical methods in the training of artificial intelligence systems.

The Commission’s remarks

As mentioned above, the EU Commission made a number of remarks to the Government about the original text of the AI Bill, deemed to be excessively restrictive. 

More specifically, in its detailed opinion C(2024)7814, the Commission  voted down the bill for three reasons:

• definitions cannot deviate from those used in the AI Act;
• intellectual professions, judicial activities and healthcare are at risk of being overburdened by excessive obligations;
• the appointed governance authorities, AgID and ACN, are governmental authorities that cannot ensure full independence.

Final considerations

While the first issue has been addressed and resolved, the remaining issues do not appear to have been taken into consideration. Areas of potential incompatibility with European regulations on artificial intelligence therefore persist.

The question at this point is: will the AI Bill be approved as it stands, or will lawmakers take the Commission’s opinion into account and revise its content? All we can do is wait for the decision of the Chamber of Deputies.