National Security Carveouts in AI Regulation
national_security_carveouts · AI-governance topic
National Security Carveouts in AI Regulation is the recurring exclusion of military, intelligence, and national-security AI uses from civilian AI-governance instruments. EU AIA Art. 2(3) explicit exclusion; US EO 14110 §11 + NSM-10 separate track; CoE AI Convention Art. 3 carve-out; UK White Paper sectoral-regulator-only scope; India DPDPA state-security exemptions. China's approach is notable for treating state security as the central concern, not a carveout. Across 29 tracked AI-governance instruments, 3 address this topic explicitly, 2 via general principles, and 24 are silent.
Definition and scope
The recurring exclusion of military, intelligence, and national-security AI uses from civilian AI-governance instruments. EU AIA Art. 2(3) explicit exclusion; US EO 14110 §11 + NSM-10 separate track; CoE AI Convention Art. 3 carve-out; UK White Paper sectoral-regulator-only scope; India DPDPA state-security exemptions. China's approach is notable for treating state security as the central concern, not a carveout.
The cross-jurisdiction picture below shows how each of 29 tracked instruments treats this topic. The patterns vary substantially — and 24 regimes are silent, leaving gaps that future policy work could address.
Historical primacy & cross-jurisdiction tension
First addressed by UK Pro-Innovation Approach to AI Regulation (White Paper) on (implicit). Subsequent regimes have either codified, diverged from, or remained silent on this baseline.
- Forum-shoppingEU AI Act↔Executive Order 14179 — Removing Barriers to American Leadership in AI
- Forum-shoppingExecutive Order 14110 on Safe, Secure, Trustworthy AI↔Interim Measures for Generative AI Service Management
- Forum-shoppingCouncil of Europe Framework Convention on AI↔G7 Hiroshima AI Process Code of Conduct
Cross-jurisdiction coverage
At a glance — same legend as the hub matrix
Silent regimes — gap signal
Instruments that do not address National Security Carveouts in AI Regulation — candidates for future policy work.
- Executive Order 14179 — Removing Barriers to American Leadership in AIUS
- Interim Measures for Generative AI Service ManagementCN
- G7 Hiroshima AI Process Code of ConductG7
- OECD AI Principles (Recommendation)OECD
- UN GA Resolution on Safe, Secure, Trustworthy AIUN
- NIST AI Risk Management FrameworkUS
- Bletchley Declaration on AI Safetyglobal
- Seoul Declaration on Safe, Innovative and Inclusive AIglobal
- NIST AI RMF Generative AI ProfileUS
- California SB-1047: Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier AI Models ActUS
- Brazil AI Bill (PL 2338/2023)BR
- ASEAN Guide on AI Governance and EthicsASEAN
- African Union Continental AI StrategyAfrican_Union
- Anthropic Responsible Scaling Policy (RSP) v2US
- OpenAI Preparedness FrameworkUS
- Google DeepMind Frontier Safety FrameworkUS
- Meta Frontier AI FrameworkUS
- UK-US AI Safety Institute Memorandum of Understandingglobal
- White House Voluntary AI CommitmentsUS
- Singapore Model AI Governance Framework for Generative AISG
- Japan METI AI Guidelines for BusinessJP
- NYC Local Law 144 of 2021 (Automated Employment Decision Tools)US
- Colorado Artificial Intelligence Act (SB 24-205)US
- Illinois HB 3773 / Public Act 103-0804 (AI Employment Discrimination)US
References
- EU-AIA-2024: Art. 2(3) explicitly excludes AI systems used exclusively for military, defence, or national-security purposes
- US-EO-14110: §11 national-security exemption; NSM-10 parallel-track governance for national-security AI
- UK-WHITEPAPER-2023: Defence + intelligence excluded via sectoral-regulator scope; carveout via omission rather than explicit clause
- COE-AI-CONV: Art. 3 — does not apply to AI used for national security / defence
- IN-DPDP-2023: DPDPA exemptions for state-security functions (Art. 17); not specifically AI but applies
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5 instruments tracked.