Title: Recommender systems research under the EU’s Digital Services Act and AI Act

by João Vinagre, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.

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Abstract

The European Union has recently introduced several pieces of EU-wide legislation specifically designed for the digital economy. The two most relevant for the RecSys community are the Digital Services Act, in force since late 2022, that provides the legal basis for the activity of online platforms (most notably social media and marketplaces) and search engines in the EU, and the AI Act, that came into force in August 2024, that regulates high-risk AI systems, with specific rules for General Purpose AI systems. This talk will provide a technical angle to the two regulations, starting with the principles behind them, and focusing on their implications for the RecSys community, particularly from a research perspective.

About João Vinagre

João is a researcher at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission in Seville, Spain. His research interests are on recommender systems and machine learning, mostly on stream-based algorithms and continuous evaluation. Within the JRC, he is also part of the research team of the European Centre for Algorithmic Transparency (ECAT), that provides technical and scientific inputs to policy makers in the context of the Digital Services Act and the AI Act.