Albania Prepares First AI Law With AKSHI at the Center
By Suad Seferi ·
Albania is preparing its first dedicated law on artificial intelligence, a major step toward creating a national legal framework for the development, use and supervision of AI systems. The draft law has been issued for public consultation and aims to align Albania’s approach with the European Union’s AI Act. The draft gives a central role to the National Agency for Information Society, known as AKSHI, which is expected to serve as the coordinating authority for artificial intelligence in the country. This means AKSHI would have responsibilities related to implementation, monitoring and supervision of AI systems and general-purpose AI models. The law is designed to regulate how AI systems are developed, placed on the market and used in Albania. It also applies to some foreign providers if their AI systems produce results used inside Albania. This broad scope reflects the reality of modern technology, where AI services can be built in one country but used by citizens, companies or institutions in another. One of the most important parts of the draft is the classification of AI systems based on risk. Low-risk systems would face lighter requirements, while high-risk systems would need to follow stricter rules. These rules include risk management, technical documentation, transparency, logging, post-market monitoring and human oversight. High-risk AI systems are especially important because they can affect people’s rights, safety or access to important services. Such systems may be used in areas like employment, education, public administration, law enforcement, healthcare or access to financial services. The draft law recognizes that when AI has real consequences for people, stronger safeguards are necessary. The draft also lists practices that would be prohibited. These include AI systems that use manipulative or deceptive techniques to influence people’s behavior, systems that exploit people’s weaknesses because of age, disability or economic status, and systems that create social scoring of individuals. Another sensitive area is biometric identification. The draft places restrictions on real-time biometric identification systems in public spaces. For law enforcement purposes, such systems would be allowed only in specific cases, such as searching for victims of kidnapping or trafficking, preventing serious threats to life and security, or identifying suspects of serious crimes. Prior court authorization would be required. The draft also addresses facial recognition databases. It prohibits systems that create such databases through the indiscriminate collection of images from the internet or security cameras. This is an important protection because facial recognition technology can create serious privacy and surveillance risks if used without limits. Another area covered by the draft is synthetic content and deepfakes. As AI-generated images, videos, voices and texts become more realistic, governments are under pressure to create transparency rules. Albania’s draft law begins to define these concepts and creates a basis for regulating AI-generated content. At the same time, the draft is not only restrictive. It also includes measures to support innovation. One example is the creation of regulatory AI sandboxes. These are controlled environments where companies, researchers and startups can develop, train and test AI systems under supervision before bringing them fully to market. This could be especially useful for startups and small businesses. AI regulation can be complex and expensive, and smaller companies often struggle with compliance. The draft includes simplified forms of technical documentation for small and medium-sized enterprises, which could help innovation continue while still maintaining basic safeguards. The law is also important for Albania’s European integration path. By aligning with the EU AI Act, Albania is preparing its legal system for future European standards. This could help Albanian institutions, companies and technology providers cooperate more easily with European partners. However, implementation will be difficult. Albania will need trained regulators, technical experts, clear procedures and strong cooperation between institutions. AI supervision requires both legal knowledge and technical capacity, because authorities must understand how systems work, how risks are measured and how violations can be detected. The draft law shows that Albania is moving from experimentation toward formal AI governance. After gaining global attention for its AI-based public-sector initiatives, the country is now trying to build rules that can manage the risks of artificial intelligence while still encouraging innovation. If passed and implemented effectively, the law could become the foundation of Albania’s AI policy for the coming years. It would give citizens stronger protections, give companies clearer rules and bring Albania closer to the European model of trustworthy, human-centered artificial intelligence.