Some EU Artificial Intelligence Rules Will Apply in Northern Ireland, UK Government Says
Some European Union rules on artificial intelligence will apply in Northern Ireland, the UK government has said.
However, the regulation of AI in Northern Ireland will largely be a matter for the UK government and Stormont. The EU rules will only apply to physical goods which have an embedded AI system.
They will apply due to the Windsor Framework, the Brexit deal which keeps Northern Ireland inside the EU's single market for goods.
The EU's AI Act was passed in 2024, and in 2025 the European Commission proposed that the parts concerning goods should apply in Northern Ireland. That has been under negotiation with the UK since then.
The government said: "The EU AI Act does not apply to NI in full. It applies only where an AI system is closely integrated with a tangible physical product that is placed on the NI market."
"It would not affect an NI business simply because it uses online or downloadable AI tools to manage work, analyse data, or carry out business functions," the government said.
"It would also not place obligations on the developers of those tools for their use in NI, unless the AI is closely integrated into a physical product placed on the NI market."
Examples of products which will be covered by the EU laws include a smart speaker with a built-in AI voice assistant or a smart watch requiring a manufacturer's AI health monitoring app.
The main idea of the EU law is to regulate AI based on its capacity to cause harm to society. The higher the risk, the stricter the rules, with some AI applications being banned.
The government's examples of some physical products which could be banned include a connected toy embedding AI that encourages children to undertake increasingly risky activities in exchange for reward or praise, or an AI-connected camera with voice recognition that detects employee emotions.
In general terms, when the EU's rules on the regulation of goods are updated, the UK government has to agree which of them should apply in Northern Ireland. In some circumstances the Northern Ireland Assembly also has a vote on the matter.
