Framework for Democratic AI Governance: Roadmap and recommendations for European policymakers

This policy brief focuses on short-term action (2026-2028) around AI governance and provides practical guidelines for experts and policymakers. It introduces a framework that embeds democratic pillars β€” participation, freedom, equality, transparency, knowledge, and the rule of law β€” directly into the entire AI lifecycle.

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Bibliography of KT4D Social Risk Toolkit Module B: AI, trust and awareness

Module B focuses on the risks AI poses for social fairness and trust: how the use of AI-based tools can generate inequality or dishonesty, particularly when human productions differ in nature (e.g. creative vs. repetitive tasks), and how such dynamics impact trust between individuals and institutions.

This document contains the Bibliography of KT4D Social Risk Toolkit Module B: AI, trust and awareness.

Effect of Technology:
Democratic values:
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Risks to individual freedoms of speech and action

Since our liberal democracies generally employ forms of representativeness to their institutions, the impact of AI on free and fair elections is also one of the key ways in which technology affects our polities. The level of acceptance of the results from the elections - the legitimacy of the outcome - rests largely on how those who end up with less power shares in the representative system see the fairness of the election process itself.

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Legal and regulatory frameworks related to personal data and user profiling

The purpose of this document is to provide an overview of how AI, big data and frontier technologies impact rights from the data protection perspective. The newly adopted definition of AI by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) states that β€œan AI system is a machine-based system that, for explicit or implicit objectives, infers, from the input it receives, how to generate outputs such as predictions, content, recommendations, or decisions that (can) influence physical or virtual environments.

Effect of Technology:
Format:
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How should tech be regulated?

Companies have significant influence over public discourse in online platforms, necessitating that the algorithms that shape these online platforms should be regulated and constrained to sufficiently consider the public interest (Susskind, 2018: 350). Perhaps the easiest way of returning control of a public good to the people would be nationalisation of large AI companies and platforms. However, this also affords the government considerable power, to tailor public discourse to their interests (Susskind, 2018: 350).

Effect of Technology:
Democratic values:
Format:
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Risks for the use of personal data and user profiling

2.1    Equality

Equality is by-and-large considered both a positive aspect of democracy, and a necessary feature for democracy. To be brief, the main benefit of equality in democracy is that it gives equal consideration to all individuals, thus each person is a free and willing self-legislator among equals.

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The value of democracy

There are both instrumental and intrinsic reasons to value democracy. In short, democracy is valuable instrumentally because 

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