DST News: Some European Union rules on artificial intelligence (AI) will apply to certain products in Northern Ireland, the UK government has confirmed.
However, the regulation of AI in Northern Ireland will largely remain the responsibility of the UK government and the Stormont administration.
The EU rules will cover only physical products that have an AI system built into them. Their application in Northern Ireland is linked to the Windsor Framework, the Brexit agreement that keeps the region within the EU’s single market for goods.
The EU AI Act was passed in 2024. In 2025, the European Commission proposed extending the parts of the legislation covering physical goods to Northern Ireland. The proposal has been under negotiation with the UK government since then.
The UK 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 added that the rules would not affect a Northern Ireland business simply because it uses online or downloadable AI tools to manage its work, analyse data or perform business functions.
Nor would the legislation impose obligations on developers of those tools for their use in Northern Ireland, unless the AI system is closely integrated into a physical product placed on the region’s market.
Products covered by the rules could include a smart speaker with a built-in AI voice assistant or a smartwatch that requires a manufacturer’s AI-powered health-monitoring app.
The main aim of the EU legislation is to regulate AI according to the level of risk it poses to society. The higher the potential risk, the stricter the requirements, with some AI applications prohibited altogether.
Examples of physical products that could be banned include “a connected toy embedding AI that encourages children to undertake increasingly risky activities in exchange for reward or praise” and “an AI-connected camera with voice recognition that detects employee emotions”, according to the government’s guidance.
Generally, whenever the EU updates its rules on the regulation of goods, the UK government must agree on which changes should apply in Northern Ireland.
In some cases, the Northern Ireland Assembly also has a vote on the issue.
Source: BBC
