Complying with the EU’s New AI Act: A Guide to Staying Ahead

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly embedded in modern organisations—from standalone generative AI apps to AI copilots in popular SaaS platforms, and the integration of self-hosted or public large language models (LLMs) in private applications tailored to specific business needs.

The recently introduced EU AI Act sets out to regulate AI development and usage, ensuring that AI systems are safe, ethical, and respect fundamental rights. This legislation represents a major step by the European Union to govern AI within its jurisdiction. If your organisation develops or manages AI systems, understanding this regulation is crucial.

The Netskope secure access service edge (SASE) platform offers a comprehensive set of capabilities for securing and complying with AI regulations, including risk management, transparency, monitoring, reporting, and regulatory adherence. If you’re eager for details now, download the Netskope guide to the EU AI Act here. If not, keep reading for a deeper dive.

Why Is the EU AI Act Important?

The EU AI Act has drawn significant attention, especially from businesses in high-risk sectors like healthcare and finance. Compliance will be critical for organisations handling sensitive information or developing AI-driven technologies.

The Act classifies AI systems into four risk-based categories:

• Prohibited AI Systems: These include applications such as social scoring, banned due to safety and human rights concerns.
• High-risk Systems: AI used in healthcare, employment, and law enforcement faces stricter rules due to its potential impact on individuals’ lives or human rights
• General-purpose AI: Systems like chatbots must meet transparency requirements.
• Minimal-risk Systems: Tools such as spam filters have few, if any, obligations under the Act.

What does this mean for your business?

Complying with the EU AI Act not only requires a robust approach to identify and categorise AI systems but also applying data governance and risk management. Key considerations for organisations include:

• Control access to AI systems: Identify use of AI systems and control access based on the categorisation of AI system (i.e. Prohibited, High-risk, General-purpose). 
• Data loss prevention (DLP): Safeguard sensitive data processed by AI systems from unauthorised access and breaches.
• Risk management: Implement ongoing monitoring to identify and mitigate risks associated with AI deployment.
• Transparency and accountability: Maintain detailed logs demonstrating compliance. Consider not only your internal systems but also your supply chain’s adherence to these standards.

The role of a SASE architecture

To stay ahead, businesses should integrate SASE principles into their infrastructure. A SASE architecture provides a secure foundation for accessing data and applications, while supporting regulatory compliance.

As a leading SASE provider, Netskope offers an array of tools to help organisations meet the requirements of the EU AI Act. Key features include:

• Risk management: Netskope analyses AI systems from more than 85,000 cloud service providers (CSPs), identifying high-risk areas such as biometric data, critical infrastructure, and education. Policies can restrict access based on location, data type, risk levels, and more.
• Data governance: Protect sensitive data processed by AI systems from unauthorised access, with configurable policies to control access and monitor compliance. This includes tracking the movement of sensitive personal data, profiling, and biometric data.
• Transparency: Maintain compliance with transparency rules by recording AI system activities, from input data to tagging machine-generated outputs if the Netskope platform has access to the repository of output data. Netskope’s SASE platform allows detailed tracking of these processes.

For a full breakdown of Netskope’s SASE capabilities mapped to EU AI Act requirements, download the guide here.

What’s Next?

If you’re working with AI or planning new technologies, consider how the Netskope SASE platform can support your compliance efforts. By enhancing your data governance, strengthening risk management, and committing to transparency, you’ll be well-positioned to meet the EU AI Act’s requirements.

Don’t let regulatory uncertainty hold back innovation! Get in touch with us today to discuss how Netskope can support your journey towards compliance.