Considering Fundamental Rights in the European Standardisation of Artificial Intelligence: Nonsense or Strategic Alliance?

Fundamental rights are central to AI risk management: The paper argues that high-risk AI systems pose particular threats to fundamental rights (such as privacy, non-discrimination, and fair trial), meaning that effective AI standards must explicitly address these rights rather than treating them as separate concerns.

Current EU regulations have a critical gap: Both the EU AI Act proposal and the Standardisation Request on safe and trustworthy AI mention fundamental rights but fail to provide concrete guidelines explaining how standards should actually incorporate or protect these rights—a "regulatory blind spot" that needs urgent clarification.

Standards should be the mechanism for protecting rights: Rather than viewing AI standards as purely technical documents, the paper contends that harmonised standards developed under the AI Act should actively reflect fundamental rights considerations, making rights protection a practical requirement rather than an afterthought.

The standardisation process itself needs reform: The paper acknowledges that valid criticisms exist about how European standardisation currently operates, suggesting that simply adding fundamental rights language won't work without addressing deeper structural issues in how standards are developed and implemented.

Implementation requires practical guidance: Moving forward, the paper emphasizes that incorporating fundamental rights into AI standards demands concrete, actionable approaches—not just policy statements—to translate abstract rights protections into measurable technical requirements.