The Director of the TIC Salut Social Foundation is appointed representative of the Catalan Department of Health on the Artificial Intelligence Commission

The Director of the TIC Salut Social Foundation, Joan Guanyabens, has been appointed representative of the Catalan Department of Health on the Artificial Intelligence Commission approved by the government agreement 45/2024 of 27 February 2024. Guanyabens has been very involved in the development of the Programme for the Promotion and Development of Artificial Intelligence in the Catalan Health System (Health/AI Programme), coordinated by the TIC Salut Social Foundation, and will therefore be able to contribute to the Commission his strategic knowledge in the application of this disruptive technology in health.

The Commission members will include one person representing each department of the Government of the Generalitat entrusted with powers or functions in the application of AI, in addition to representatives of general directorates and public bodies such as the Cybersecurity Agency of Catalonia, the Telecommunications and Information Technologies Centre, the Catalan Institute of Statistics, or the Open Administration Consortium of Catalonia, among others.

As detailed in the government agreement, the new initiative aims to provide the government of the Generalitat with a transversal organisational framework that coordinates the different areas of action required by the application of AI-based technologies in the provision of public services and, in a similar vein, promotes the use of an ethical, trustworthy AI that is respectful toward fundamental rights, guaranteeing citizens’ rights, such as information, transparency and protection of personal data.

Functions of the Artificial Intelligence Commission

The Artificial Intelligence Commission must be responsible for ensuring regulatory compliance, notwithstanding the competences of other units, and for the study, promotion, empowerment and development of AI systems in public services of the government of the Generalitat, in addition to its control and oversight.

As described in the Official Gazette of the Generalitat of Catalonia, the functions of the Commission are:

• To promote and propose to the government, through the pertaining department, where applicable, the necessary regulatory and organisational instruments or measures to promote and supervise AI in the public services of the government of the Generalitat of Catalonia.
• To assess the impact of AI on the public services of the government of the Generalitat of Catalonia and, in particular, propose and monitor the methodologies for the evaluation of the citizens’ rights and freedoms in the provision of public services.
• To identify the main entities involved and their competencies with regard to AI.
• To propose cooperation and coordination mechanisms between these entities and their stakeholders.
• To promote, supervise and control the actions that should be conducted by the different working groups that are created to apply, control and enforce the rules in the field of AI.
• To supervise the compliance and adequacy of the application of AI systems to the Data Governance Model of the government of the Generalitat, especially with regard to the Model’s methodologies and policies.
• To bring before the Data Ethics Committee the ethical matters specific to the use of AI in the scope of activity of the government of the Generalitat.
• To foster best practices in the application of AI that take into account ethical principles and values.
• To propose human surveillance or supervision measures to prevent or minimise the risks arising from the application of AI, especially with regard to the risks arising from the protection of personal data.

Apart from the Commission, the same government agreement contemplated the creation of the Registry of AI systems, as a standardised and indexable instrument to document the decisions and assumptions that the government has made about an AI system throughout its life cycle, i.e. in development, application, management and, ultimately, decommissioning. Likewise, it guarantees the compliance with the duties of transparency in the use of the systems, which will allow the public to know what algorithms the Administration uses and other relevant information related to administrative action through the use of these technologies.