Italy Enacts Framework Law on Artificial Intelligence, Law No. 132/2025, October 10, 2025

Italy's Framework Law on Artificial Intelligence, Law No. 132 of 23 September 2025 (Legge 23 settembre 2025, n. 132), entered into force on 10 October 2025. The law was published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 223 of 25 September 2025. It constitutes Italy's primary domestic AI legislation and applies in conjunction with, and subject to, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 of the European Parliament and of the Council (the EU AI Act), to which it expressly cross-references under Article 1(2). The law is in final, effective form — no transitional phase remains before its core operative provisions took effect, though implementing acts may still follow. Law No. 132/2025 consists of 28 articles in six chapters: Principles and aims; Sector-specific provisions; National strategy, national authorities, and promotional measures; Provisions protecting users and on copyright; Criminal provisions; and Financial and final provisions.

Article 2 provides operative definitions of "artificial intelligence system," "data," and "artificial intelligence model," tracking the glossary of the EU AI Act and drawing a functional distinction between a trained model (a mathematical function) and a system (the complete application deploying one or more models). Article 3 establishes general principles applicable across the entire life cycle of an AI system or model: transparency, proportionality, security, personal data protection, confidentiality, accuracy, non-discrimination, gender equality, sustainability, and respect for human autonomy and decision-making power. The law requires, under Chapter IV, that authorship of copyright-protected works belongs exclusively to human beings even where AI tools contribute to creation — provided the result reflects the human author's intellectual effort. Chapter V criminalises unlawful dissemination of AI-generated or manipulated content and extends criminal liability to text and data mining activities involving online materials.

For AI system providers, deployers, and developers operating in Italy or directing AI products at Italian users, Law No. 132/2025 imposes the Article 3 principles as binding obligations across the entire system or model life cycle. Healthcare providers using AI in triage or clinical decision-support, employers using AI in hiring or workplace monitoring, and judicial bodies using AI in procedural or analytical functions all face sector-specific rules under Chapter II. Technology providers supplying AI tools to persons with disabilities must guarantee full accessibility. Courts applying the law will assess copyright authorship by examining the creative contribution of human prompts versus the autonomous generative role of the underlying model — a question with broad implications for AI-generated creative content commercialised in Italy.

For minors, Article 2 specifies that a person under 14 years of age requires parental or guardian consent for personal data processing connected to AI system use; a minor who has reached 14 may consent autonomously. The law operates in parallel with the EU AI Act, and Italian courts and regulators must interpret Law No. 132/2025 consistently with Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 pursuant to Article 1(2). Because the EU AI Act's full prohibition and high-risk-system compliance deadlines are phased, the interaction between those deadlines and Law No. 132/2025's immediate entry-into-force date creates an area of open interpretive uncertainty that practitioners advising on Italian AI deployments must monitor.

Source: Legge 23 settembre 2025, n. 132, "Disposizioni e deleghe al Governo in materia di intelligenza artificiale," published in Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 223 del 25-09-2025, entered into force 10 October 2025, https://www.normattiva.it/uri-res/N2Ls?urn:nir:stato:legge:2025-07-31;132 (confirmed 4 March 2026). See also: Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 (EU AI Act), OJ L, 2024/1689, 12.7.2024.

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