⚡ Quick Summary
Published by the IAPP, this tracker maps AI governance law and policy across 24 jurisdictions on six continents, from Argentina and Australia to the U.K. and the U.S. Each country entry is set out in four columns: the specific AI governance law or policy, the relevant authorities, other relevant laws and policies, and wider AI context. Entries record national strategies, draft and in-force legislation and voluntary instruments, among them Australia's Voluntary AI Safety Standard and its ten guardrails, Brazil's AI bill with prohibitions on "excessive risk" systems and civil liability for providers, China's in-force provisions for algorithmic recommendation and generative AI, and Singapore's Model AI Governance Frameworks, AI Verify toolkit and Veritas Initiative.
The document's stated premise is that "governance of AI often, if not always, begins with a jurisdiction rolling out a national strategy or ethics policy instead of legislating from the get-go", a pattern it says is evident throughout. It also records multilateral coordination: the OECD AI principles reaffirmed by G7 digital and technology ministers at the 2023 Hiroshima Summit, frameworks from UNESCO, the International Organization for Standardization, the African Union and the Council of Europe, and the 2023 U.K. AI Safety Summit. The tracker was last updated in October 2024, and the IAPP notes that it does not include all AI initiatives in every jurisdiction.
🧩 What’s Covered
Entries follow an alphabetical country order, each in four columns.
- Framing and scope (pp. 2–3): the observation that jurisdictions usually begin with a national strategy or ethics policy, the multilateral layer (OECD AI principles reaffirmed at the 2023 G7 Hiroshima Summit; UNESCO, ISO, African Union and Council of Europe frameworks), the list of 24 jurisdictions in focus, and a map note that coverage does not show how active jurisdictions are on AI legislation.
- The Americas (pp. 4, 7–9, 11, 19): Argentina's draft National AI Plan and Resolution 2/2023 recommendations for the public sector; Brazil's AI Strategy, AI bill and the ANPD's opinion on Bill 2338/2023; Canada's anticipated AI and Data Act in Bill C-27; Chile's 2021 National Policy and Action Plan and 2024 draft law; Colombia's AI Expert Mission; Peru's draft law 3814.
- Asia-Pacific and the Middle East (pp. 5–6, 10, 13–16, 18, 21–24): Australia's Voluntary AI Safety Standard with ten guardrails; China's in-force use-case laws and September 2024 AI Safety Governance Framework; India's proposed Digital India Act; Indonesia's Circular on AI Ethics; Japan's draft AI Operator Guidelines; New Zealand's Algorithm Charter; Singapore's Model AI Governance Frameworks and AI Verify; South Korea's AI Act in the works; Taiwan's draft AI Basic Act; the UAE's National Strategy for AI.
- Africa (pp. 11, 17, 19): Egypt's National AI Strategy and its four pillars, Mauritius's AI Strategy, and Nigeria's August 2024 draft national AI strategy.
- EU and U.K. (pp. 12–13, 25): the EU AI Act, in force from 1 Aug. 2024 with compliance dates running from early 2025 to the end of 2030, the EU AI Office, related instruments such as the GDPR, DSA and the draft AI Liability Directive, and the U.K.'s sector-led approach and July 2024 King's speech commitment.
- U.S. federal (pp. 26–27): the October 2023 executive order on safe, secure and trustworthy AI, acts and bills marked [IN FORCE] or [DRAFT], nonbinding frameworks including the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, and initiatives such as voluntary commitments from leading AI companies.
- Contact and disclaimer (p. 28): IAPP research contacts, the October 2024 update, and a statement that nothing in the material is legal advice.
💡 Why it matters?
For teams that must place AI obligations in context, the tracker's four-column format puts the named AI instrument, the supervising authorities and the adjacent privacy, consumer, copyright and sectoral laws side by side for each jurisdiction. Statuses such as [IN FORCE], [DRAFT] and "DRAFT UPDATE TO ORIGINAL LAW" help separate binding rules from proposals, and the wider-context column records participation in the OECD AI principles, the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI, the Bletchley Declaration and the Council of Europe Framework Convention. That makes it a starting point for scoping multi-jurisdiction compliance work or monitoring where draft AI bills stand.
❓ What’s Missing
The tracker states that it does not include all AI initiatives in every jurisdiction and covers only a subset of countries, so many jurisdictions are absent. Entries are brief summaries: they rarely give article-level obligations, supervisory practice or compliance deadlines, other than the EU timeline. Names, instruments and statuses reflect October 2024, when the document was last updated; it describes Canada's AI and Data Act as anticipated and lists numerous U.S. bills as drafts, and it directs readers to find the most up-to-date version on the IAPP website. Editorial slips such as "Israe l" and "have has signed" appear in the text.
👥 Best For
Compliance and policy leads scoping where AI obligations sit across several jurisdictions; privacy professionals tracking how AI rules interact with data protection law; legal and public-sector teams monitoring draft AI legislation and the authorities responsible; and researchers wanting a country-by-country overview naming the instruments, regulators and adjacent laws.
📄 Source Details
Global AI Law and Policy Tracker, published by the IAPP and credited on the cover to "IAPP Research and Insights". Updated October 2024; © 2024 IAPP. 28 pages, in English. Contacts listed are Richard Sentinella, PhD, AI Governance Research Fellow, and Joe Jones, Research and Insights Director, with research@iapp.org. The text extraction covered all 28 pages. No URL for the document itself is printed; page footers show iapp.org and the introduction refers to "our website" without an extracted address.
