Government of Spain strengthens cooperation with European Commission to improve algorithmic transparency

The Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Function, Óscar López, during the meeting

The Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Function, Óscar López, visited the headquarters of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Seville, accompanied by the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, María González Veracruz. After touring its facilities, the minister confirmed that the Government of Spain will strengthen collaboration with this multidisciplinary centre to improve its ability to understand and analyse how algorithms work, as well as how they make decisions, especially when they affect the lives of citizens.

"One of the things we have come to do, in addition to learning about the work of the Joint Research Centre, is also to strengthen our collaboration with this centre so that Spain can be a pioneer, as it already is, in the application of artificial intelligence and also in algorithmic transparency", he announced.

This decision enhances the collaboration agreement which has been in place for the past few years between the Ministry of Digital Transformation and Public Function and the JRC, with the aim of obtaining scientific data to analyse digital transformation and improve cooperation between the Spanish and European governments.

Seville is one of the four sites of the Joint Research Centre in Europe, which is dedicated to providing independent scientific evidence for the design of EU policies and which, among its functions, is the development of research in the field of algorithmic transparency.

"Seville is one of the digital capitals of Europe. Among other things, because it has a centre that is researching the most important things we have ahead of us in terms of artificial intelligence, disinformation, digital rights, protection of minors and data protection. It is vital that we have algorithmic transparency and this city has this centre," explained López.

The minister defended the opportunities offered by the current digital revolution, but he also wanted to emphasise the impact it has on citizens' daily lives. "Because it is algorithms that largely decide what we consume and may decide in the future what we buy, who we vote for, what we like. So it is very important, as a society we have a lot riding on ensuring transparency in algorithms.

The ministry's intention is to strengthen the centre's alliance with the Government of Spain, which could take the form of various actions, such as research projects, exchanges of specialised personnel and technological resources, among others.

"The collaboration of this European centre with the Spanish Agency for the Supervision of Artificial Intelligence (AESIA), with the Ministry and with the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre is very important. In short, I believe that Spain can play a very important role in something that will probably not make the headlines, will not make the news, but which is changing and is going to change our lives now", concluded Óscar López.

Non official translation