Inter­pel­la­ti­on Jean Tschopp (24.3415): Plat­forms and AI: Users’ rights

Sub­mit­ted text

Online plat­forms take up a con­sidera­ble amount of space. Howe­ver, their sta­tus is unclear. In Switz­er­land, the legal situa­ti­on of online plat­forms is not regu­la­ted. In April 2023, the Fede­ral Coun­cil ins­truc­ted DETEC to draw up a con­sul­ta­ti­on draft on the regu­la­ti­on of com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on plat­forms. It was sche­du­led for March 2024The pro­po­sal should now be sub­mit­ted to the Fede­ral Coun­cil in the fall. It is unli­kely that regu­la­ti­on will come into force befo­re 2027.

The EU, for its part, is in the pro­cess of taking action. The EU regu­la­ti­on on a sin­gle mar­ket for digi­tal ser­vices (Digi­tal Ser­vices Act; DSA) has been in force sin­ce Febru­ary 2024. The prin­ci­ple is that what is ille­gal online is also ille­gal off­line. The Euro­pean Com­mis­si­on has iden­ti­fi­ed 19 very lar­ge plat­forms (with more than 45 mil­li­on acti­ve users per month across the EU) such as Face­book, Insta­gram, Lin­ke­dIn, Tik­Tok, X (form­er­ly Twit­ter) and the two very lar­ge online search engi­nes Bing and Goog­le Search, which pose a syste­mic risk and requi­re exten­si­ve pro­tec­ti­ve mea­su­res. Goog­le, for exam­p­le, has alre­a­dy inve­sted seve­ral bil­li­on in start-ups spe­cia­li­zing in arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gence (AI). Alt­hough AI offers oppor­tu­ni­ties in data ana­ly­sis, it also har­bors various risks for the free for­ma­ti­on of opi­ni­on, which is cen­tral to a direct demo­cra­cy such as Switz­er­land, data pro­tec­tion and the pre­ven­ti­on of iden­ti­ty fraud.

Users also need pro­tec­tion from the traps of dark pat­terns: they need to know what they are being offe­red, who they are enga­ging with, who is respon­si­ble in the event of pro­blems and why cer­tain con­tent is being recom­men­ded to them.

Final­ly, in the area of data pro­tec­tion, Switz­er­land focu­ses on indi­vi­du­al respon­si­bi­li­ty, while the EU also inclu­des plat­forms (legal entities).

1) How does the Fede­ral Coun­cil intend to syste­mic risks of inte­gra­ting arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gence into online search engi­nes react?

2. what action the Fede­ral Coun­cil will take to safe­guard users’ free­dom of choice in the face of unfair com­pe­ti­ti­on or abu­se of a domi­nant posi­ti­on through online platforms?

3. is the Fede­ral Coun­cil con­side­ring Sanc­tions also against the plat­forms invol­ved (legal enti­ties) and not only against the indi­vi­du­als they represent?

I would like to thank the Fede­ral Coun­cil for ans­we­ring my questions.