News special episode of Tech and the City podcast on the FCA's approach to AI
In this paper, the FCA, which is responsible for conduct regulation, asked questions concerning sector specific definitions of AI, the approach they should take and how it should align with existing regulation, such as the Senior Managers & Certification Regime.
The Feedback Statement to this set out that there were 54 responses to this paper with 25% of those being from trade associations - including techUK.
Whilst there was no steer from the regulator in terms of what their future policy may be, the summary of responses found:
- No divergence in overall opinion between respondents from various sectors of FS and tech;
- No appetite for FS sectoral definition of AI;
- Support for outcomes-based regulation in keeping with the FCA's current 'technology agnostic' approach;
- There may be difficulties with regulating the rapidly evolving tech landscape with a definition/prescriptive approach;
- Desire for a more harmonised regulatory approach between the FCA and other regulators;
- Concerns over the fragmentation of data regulation across multiple regulators and what this might mean for measuring bias in outcomes, and a need for better alignment in definitions and sectoral data regulation;
- Requirement for strong consumer protection;
- Strong desire for industry guidance issued by the regulator on their expectations;
- Read accross to financial regulators' Critical Third Party work;
- Opposition to AI-specific role under Senior Managers & Certification Regime and further guidance to be issued in respect of what this means for existing responsible persons.
We await the next steps and hope to host the FCA at an event soon to learn more about their thinking and the next steps.
