Peru - AI Promotion and Regulation (08223)

Overview

Project 08223/2023 ("Ley de fomento y regulación del uso de la inteligencia artificial en el Perú") is a broad legislative initiative presented to the Peruvian Congress that aims to both promote and regulate artificial intelligence (AI) nationally. Registered on 14 June 2024, the draft positions AI as a public policy priority to modernize public services and accelerate economic development while safeguarding constitutional rights. The bill sets out general objectives (promotion, regulation, protection of rights), a set of guiding principles (transparency, privacy, non-discrimination, security, supervision by humans), and institutional measures including a proposed national technical center to support public entities and consolidate high-performance processing resources. See the parliamentary dossier and text at Congress expediente 8223 and an archived project PDF referenced by legal repositories such as the congressional file server.

Definitions

The bill offers purpose-driven definitions to reduce ambiguity in scope and obligations. Core definitions include: (i) "Artificial Intelligence (AI) system" — electronic-mechanical systems that perform predictions, recommendations or decisions for human-defined objectives; (ii) "developer" and "operator" — entities that design and deploy AI systems; (iii) "high-impact system" — systems whose malfunction or bias could substantially affect individual rights or public interests; and (iv) "personal data" — consistent with existing Peruvian data protection concepts. These definitions aim to align technical concepts with statutory responsibilities for safety, documentation and human oversight.

Governance and Institutional Framework

The draft sets out an institutional architecture for coordination and oversight. It mandates coordination among sectoral ministries (e.g., Health, Education, Justice, Transport), assigns responsibilities to a central coordinating body to implement the national AI strategy, and proposes the creation of a specialized national center to provide shared computing and evaluation services. Public agencies would be required to integrate AI governance into procurement, operations and service delivery, and to report progress to the Congress annually. Several provisions require cooperation with the national data protection authority and cybersecurity agencies to ensure integrated oversight. The bill text and explanatory memorandum describe institutional tasks in detail; see the congressional communications summary at Congress communications and the project PDF on the file server.

Key Focus Areas

The proposal concentrates on several interlinked areas: (1) Ethical/legal principles — enshrining transparency, privacy, non-discrimination, safety, accountability and human oversight as mandatory principles for public and private AI use; (2) Public sector modernization — enabling AI to improve efficiency in education, health, justice and urban mobility while requiring safeguards to protect vulnerable groups; (3) Data governance — promoting secure, lawful data practices and inter-agency data sharing mechanisms with privacy protection; (4) Technical conformity and assessment — establishing evaluation, certification or registration obligations for certain systems, especially those with significant social impact; (5) Risk management — requiring lifecycle risk assessments, testing and documentation (including logs and model cards) and contingency planning; (6) Cybersecurity — mandating security standards for model and data protection and incident response; (7) Education and capacity-building — supporting workforce training, research and public awareness; and (8) Enforcement and remedies — enabling administrative sanctions, corrective measures and pathways for redress. The bill attempts to balance promotion and control by incentivizing innovation (shared resources, national center, public procurement preferences) while conditioning deployment on adherence to safeguards to protect fundamental rights.

Implementation Framework

Implementation is conceived through a hybrid combination of primary law provisions and delegated regulations. The draft sets general obligations and authorizes the executive/ministries to issue technical norms and sector-specific rules for detailed procedures (e.g., conformity assessment protocols, registration forms, labelling and certification). Public procurement rules would be adapted to require risk assessments and compliance statements for AI procured by the State. The national coordinating body and the proposed technical center would publish technical guidelines, establish evaluation labs, and offer centralized compute and algorithmic audit services for smaller public entities, lowering barriers to adoption while standardizing compliance. The bill anticipates phased implementation, with high-impact systems subject to immediate, stricter requirements and other systems subject to progressive compliance schedules.

Monitoring and Evaluation

Monitoring provisions require regular reporting by the coordinating body to Congress, including an annual report on implementation of the national digital transformation and AI strategy. The bill envisages maintaining registries or inventories of deployed AI systems (particularly high-impact ones), requiring periodic audits and post-deployment monitoring, and establishing key performance indicators tied to public-service improvements and rights protections. Independent audits, third-party conformity assessments and public transparency reports are promoted to facilitate external oversight and civil society scrutiny.

Penalties, Liability, and Appeals

The draft contemplates administrative sanctions (fines, suspension of operation, remedial orders) for non-compliance and supports procedural guarantees, including rights to administrative appeal. It recognizes civil liability and redress for harms caused by AI systems, while leaving specific penalty scales, enforcement powers and judicial interplay to implementing rules or complementary legislative instruments. The design seeks to enable effective remedies without unduly chilling legitimate innovation in research and public service delivery.

Relationship to Other Instruments

The bill is written to interact with Peru's existing data protection framework and sectoral laws (health, consumer protection, public procurement, cybersecurity) and anticipates coordination with the national data protection authority and sector regulators. It expressly references the need to be consistent with constitutional guarantees and existing administrative law principles, and it foresees regulatory harmonization where sectoral regulators have pre-existing competences (e.g., medical devices in Health, financial regulators in Finance).

International Alignment

Project 08223/2023 signals intent to align Peru's AI governance with international norms and trends, including risk-based approaches used in other jurisdictions, interoperability of technical standards, and participation in multilateral cooperation for ethical AI. The draft encourages adoption of best practices for model transparency, impact assessments and cybersecurity consistent with international guidance and cooperation frameworks.

Implementation Timeline

Milestones: 2024-06-14 Congressional registration of project; 2024-09-02 Presentation and defense of the bill before the Science, Innovation and Technology Commission by author Flavio Cruz Mamani; Ongoing Committee review and technical evaluation; Entry into force subject to approval and promulgation.

Sources and References

Primary sources: Official parliamentary expediente Proyecto de Ley N.° 08223/2023-CR and official full bill PDF available at Congressional File Server. Official parliamentary coverage provided by Congreso de la República Communications Portal.