Answer given by Mr Breton on behalf of the European Commission
15.6.2020
As part of the common European response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Commission is active internationally, including on data regulation and research, and is a signatory of the Statement on Data Sharing in Public Health Emergency. The Commission is facilitating collaboration between the EU and international research centres and organisations working on modelling the COVID-19 outbreak.
Five out of 18 research projects[1], funded under the expression of interest for COVID-19 research[2], use artificial intelligence (AI) to help them accelerate drug discovery, optimise antibodies against Sars-CoV-2, predict transmission dynamics, and efficiently counteract misinformation.
The Commission intends to fund among others solutions based on technologies such as AI and robotics, to support innovative and rapid health-related approaches to deliver quick results for society and a higher level of preparedness of health systems. These will need to respect the fundamental rights for privacy and data protection and be compliant with the EU legislation.
The Commission is aware of the increasing number of disinformation campaigns on COVID-19. In addition to the ‘Fighting disinformation’ corner on its Coronavirus response website[3], the Commission is in constant contact with the main online platforms, particularly the signatories of the Code of Practice against disinformation.
They are taking action to curb COVID-19-related disinformation, including taking down illegal content potentially causing physical harm, demoting false or misleading content, and limiting false products and services ads. They also promote accurate information on COVID-19 from authoritative sources and providing tools for users to access them.
- [1] https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/research_and_innovation/research_by_area/documents/ec_rtd_cv-projects.pdf
- [2] https://ec.europa.eu/info/news/coronavirus-eu-mobilises-eur10-million-for-research-2020-jan-31_en
- [3] https://ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-travel-eu/health/coronavirus-response/fighting-disinformation_en