ISO 42001 and Legal Compliance: A Principled Implementation of the AI Management System

ISO/IEC 42001:2023 is the world-first standard for managing AI responsibly. It addresses the unique challenges AI poses, such as ethical considerations, transparency, and continuous learning. This voluntary international standard on AI management systems is growing in importance. With increased concerns over—and distrust of—the use of AI, more and more consumers and clients are likely to require their vendors to be ISO/IEC 42001:2023-certified, and more organizations in all industries and of all sizes are likely to implement AI management systems on their own.

Part of this AI management system’s implementation process involves taking into consideration “legal requirements.” However, many implementers have trouble understanding the basic concepts of AI law. In preparation for the increasing regulation of AI across the globe, this book aims to methodically connect the dots between the technical standard and domestic, regional, and international laws relating to AI, mapping the technical standard’s clauses and controls to the relevant legal provisions.

This book will explain the law in a comprehensible way to the implementer of the AI management system (regardless of whether they are legally trained), and adopt a comparative approach: given their extra-territorial reach (the ‘Brussels effect’), the EU AI Act, and the GDPR will be regarded as the benchmarks, contrasted with examples from other jurisdictions which are likely to use these regulations as starting points for their drafting of new AI laws.

This book will ground the discussion in AI ethics (while avoiding abstract principles in this practical guide), and will be structured according to the ethical principles of privacy, security, fairness, transparency and explainability. This structure aims to revitalize and provide a unique interpretation of what is often perceived as a dry, procedural standard.

What You Will Learn:

• Both the standard and the organization which set it, and the relevance of law.
• The context, relevance and role of legal requirements in the standard.
• Understand how their implementation of the AIMS supports ethical AI principles of privacy, security, fairness, transparency and explainability.
• Know the applicable laws at various stages of the implementation process of the AIMS.
• Appreciate the international nature of this standard despite varying regulations.

Who This Book is for:

Anyone tasked specifically with the implementation of an AIMS according to ISO/IEC 42001:2023. For all industries and organizations.

Matthew Seet is the lead author of the forthcoming book, The Risks of Artificial Intelligence in Law, to be published with Globe Law and Business. He is also the founder of LAIRisk, the world’s first legal AI risk management edtech (education technology) company. LAIRisk’s mission is to guide legal professionals and technologists in managing AI risks by using the framework of ISO 42001 (the international standard on responsible AI). It is a Microsoft for Startups partner (Level 3), and is registered in both Singapore and the European Union (Estonia) - both signatories of the EU-Singapore Digital Trade Agreement.

Matthew obtained his Master’s in International Law from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva on a Swiss Government Scholarship, and is certified as an Artificial Intelligence Governance Professional (IAPP), ISO/IEC 42001:2023 Artificial Intelligence Management Systems Lead Auditor, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Information Security Management Systems Lead Auditor and ISO 31000:2018 Lead Risk Manager.

He was formerly an international law lecturer at the National University of Singapore where he taught law for 7 years. His human rights writings have been published in the Cambridge Law Journal, Journal of International Criminal Justice, Citizenship Studies and International Journal of Refugee Law, cited in the Financial Times, and awarded the 2017 Foundation for the Development of International Law in Asia Prize for Young Scholars.

He also recently served as the board secretary of Sandbox, managing all legal and compliance matters of the Switzerland-registered global community of over 1600 entrepreneurs and creators. He previously conducted research on human rights and data privacy at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees headquarters in Geneva for over a year, and represented Switzerland in the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition.