Approfondimenti
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Drinking water: how does it reach our homes? Artificial Intelligence put to the test on water networks
Making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable is Goal 11 of the UN 2030 Agenda. Yet in Italy more than 42% of the water fed into distribution networks is still lost, and in 2024 abstractions for drinking use hit their lowest level in twenty-five years. Between the national recovery plan (PNRR), the Internet of Things…
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Italian cities go digital: from the European Mission Label to Trento’s lesson on intelligent surveillance
All nine Italian cities in the European mission “100 climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030” have now obtained the Mission Label. But the opening of the cities to the digital has also met its first, severe legal test: the Garante’s sanction against the Municipality of Trento for the “intelligent” surveillance projects Marvel and Protector. Between…
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Digital cities and “deserving” citizens: from points-based citizenship to the AI Act’s ban on social scoring
In recent years several Italian municipalities trialled “points-based citizenship” schemes that closely echoed the much-criticised Chinese social-control model: virtuous-citizen wallets, digital licences, scorecards. Today that debate has a new legal frame: since 2 February 2025, social scoring is an AI practice prohibited by Article 5 of the AI Act. What remains of those projects, and…
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The Garante’s 2026 inspection plan: the areas in the spotlight and the lessons of the Emirates case
By deliberation No. 797 of 30 December 2025 the Italian Garante planned its inspection activity for the first half of 2026: artificial intelligence in schools, data breaches of public databases, whistleblowing, health dossiers, energy-sector telemarketing, and anonymisation of Telco big data. And the recent Emirates fine shows that even a lawful legal basis does not…
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Neurorights and neural data: the UNESCO Recommendation on the ethics of neurotechnology, the first global standard protecting the mind
On 11 November 2025 the UNESCO General Conference adopted the Recommendation on the Ethics of Neurotechnology, the first global normative instrument in the field: definitions of neurotechnology and neural data, mental privacy, a ban on manipulation, and the qualification of neural data as sensitive data. A significant step. But will a soft-law instrument be enough…
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ISO/IEC 42001 and the AI Act: why certification is not (yet) a presumption of conformity
On 18 March 2026 EN ISO/IEC 42001:2026 was published, the European adoption of the standard on Artificial Intelligence management systems, while the work of CEN-CLC/JTC 21 on harmonised standards supporting the AI Act proceeds rapidly. But beware of confusing the levels: the AIMS of ISO/IEC 42001 is not the quality-management system required by Article 17…
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Scientific research and the GDPR: the EDPB’s Guidelines 1/2026 bring clarity, but the puzzle is not complete
On 15 April 2026 the European Data Protection Board adopted Guidelines 1/2026 on the processing of personal data for scientific research purposes, put out for public consultation until 25 June 2026. Six key factors to qualify research, a presumption of compatibility of secondary use, and openness to so-called broad consent: a long-awaited piece of the…
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NIS 2 put to the test: notifications, categorisation and security measures in the 2026 roll-out
2026 marks the shift of the Italian transposition of the NIS 2 Directive from the declaratory phase to the implementation phase: the duty to notify significant incidents to CSIRT Italia, the first window for the categorisation of activities and services, and the deadline for adopting baseline security measures. How to find one’s way among ACN…
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The AI Act and the Digital Omnibus: the new high-risk timeline, between simplification and fundamental rights
On 16 June 2026 the European Parliament gave final approval to the amendment of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 within the so-called “Digital Omnibus on AI”: the obligations for high-risk systems are postponed to 2 December 2027 and 2 August 2028, the simplifications for SMEs are extended to small mid-caps, and the generation of non-consensual intimate material…