The government must introduce a dedicated AI Bill and a new regulator to protect human rights from the rapid spread of artificial intelligence, according to a hard-hitting report published today by the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
The committee’s fourth report of the session, Human Rights and the Regulation of AI, warns that the UK’s current legal landscape is ‘patchy and confused,’ leaving people vulnerable to AI harms without effective redress. The report follows a year-long inquiry featuring over 70 pieces of written evidence and ten oral evidence sessions with academics, civil society groups, regulators, and technology firms.
The committee focused on three key areas of concern: equality and non-discrimination, privacy and data protection, and the right to an effective remedy. It heard evidence of AI systems producing discriminatory outcomes, including facial recognition software that failed to recognise a Black Uber Eats driver and an Amazon recruitment tool that discriminated against women, as well as police scanning around three million faces without consent between January and October 2025.
The committee recommends an AI Bill that would prohibit the most dangerous uses of AI, such as subliminal techniques and inappropriate biometric profiling, require prior approval for high-risk systems, and impose due diligence and transparency obligations across the AI lifecycle. It also calls for a new statutory AI oversight body to act as a single point of contact for complaints, maintain a public incident repository, and enforce mandatory codes of practice.
On data protection, the report urges the government to use UK GDPR regulation-making powers to clarify that the mere presence of a ‘human in the loop’ is not enough to constitute meaningful human involvement in automated decision-making.
The committee also urges the UK to set out a timeline for ratifying the Council of Europe Framework Convention on AI and to place the AI Security Institute on a statutory footing, with powers to review powerful new models before release and issue warning statements.
The report comes as the new Prime Minister’s administration has elevated AI to a Cabinet-level portfolio, appointing Kanishka Narayan MP as Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence jointly in the Cabinet Office and the new Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade. The committee welcomed this increased prominence, saying it offers ‘an opportunity to drive economic growth while respecting rights.’
However, the report criticises the previous administration’s AI Action Plan for failing to pay sufficient attention to human rights, describing witness concerns that it turns a blind eye to AI’s risks. It also highlights the recent OpenAI/Hugging Face security incident, in which AI models being tested hacked into another company, as evidence that society is currently relying too heavily on voluntary action by private firms.
The committee concludes that existing regulators ‘cannot effectively address human rights harms arising from AI systems using their present powers and resources.’
The full report can be read here.
Photo: BoliviaInteligente
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