AI Agents and the Law
Page 1 of 2: the law, and whom it binds
lexlint.org/cheatsheetEvery term links to the page that discusses it, or to its entry in the LexLint glossary.
How an instrument reaches a partyMade at one level of jurisdiction, in force by stages, and binding the role a statute names, which is one of the six parties.
1LawHow law is put together
Instrument One statute, regulation, directive or binding guidance document, carried with its citation, status and date.Jurisdiction A body of law together with the authorities and courts that apply it. A cloud region is not one.In force The status of a duty that binds today. Enacted means it is coming; proposed means it may never arrive.Binding law or framework Binding law states what is required, of whom and where. A framework states what good looks like and binds by adoption.Regulation or directive In the EU a regulation applies directly in every member state; a directive is transposed into each state's own law.Extraterritorial reach How far a law binds parties outside its territory, by the market a system is sold in and where its output is used.Territorial hook The fact a law reaches through, such as a person's residence, an operator's establishment or a site's location.Private right of action A statutory right of a private party to sue for a breach of the instrument, beside enforcement by a public body.2SoftwareThe law that already bound software
Personal data Any information relating to an identified or identifiable person, location, identifiers and inferences included.Impact assessment A written assessment of a processing operation's risks to the people whose data it uses, made before high-risk processing.Automated decision-making A decision about a person made by a system without meaningful human involvement, with legal or similar effects.Authorized access The line computer-misuse law draws between lawful and unlawful access to another party's system.robots.txt A file at a site's root stating which paths crawlers may fetch. A published standard, not a law; an opt-out in the EU.Text and data mining Automated analysis of text or data, model training included. Lawful without a licence only under an exception.Age assurance Establishing that a user is above or below an age, by declaration, estimation or verification.3Software lawWhom the statutes bind
The statute's word, its meaning, and the party it usually is.
MAKER makes itDISTRIBUTOR distributes itOPERATOR runs itOVERSEER oversees itUSER uses itCOUNTERPARTY it talks to
Provider EU AI Act Develops an AI system or model and places it on the market under its own name.MAKERDeveloper US state AI acts The US state acts' word for the party that builds the system; the provider's counterpart.MAKERManufacturer EU Cyber Resilience Act The party responsible for a product with digital elements, software included, placed on the EU market.MAKERImporter, distributor EU AI Act The parties that bring a system into a market or make it available there, with narrower duties than a provider.DISTRIBUTORDeployer EU AI Act, US state acts Uses an AI system under its own authority.OPERATORController privacy law Decides why and how personal data is processed, and carries most of the privacy duties.OPERATORProcessor privacy law Processes personal data on a controller's instructions, with its own narrower duties.OPERATORData subject privacy law The person the personal data is about, and the holder of the rights over it.USERAffected person decision law The person a system's decision or output reaches, whether or not they use it.USERRightsholder copyright law The owner of rights in content a system reads, reuses or trains on.COUNTERPARTYCompetent authority every regime The government body empowered to enforce an instrument in a jurisdiction.OVERSEER