The European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act (AI act) marks a significant step towards regulating the use of AI, ensuring that ethical and legal frameworks are in place to protect citizens and businesses alike. With AI-powered technologies rapidly transforming industries, companies need to start preparing now for compliance. In particular, sectors that handle personal data, including employee portraits, will face new responsibilities under the AI act, making it essential to understand the changes ahead.

Background for the AI act

The AI Act is a pioneering regulation proposed by the European Commission in 2021, aimed at creating a unified framework for AI governance across the EU. It has been designed with a dual focus: to promote AI innovation while protecting fundamental rights. The act categorises AI systems into risk levels—minimal, limited, high, and unacceptable—allowing regulators to tailor obligations depending on the system’s impact.

Historically, AI has been seen as an unregulated frontier, and the vision behind the AI act is to change that by providing a structured approach to ensure safety, transparency, and accountability. It mirrors the goals set by GDPR but extends them into the realm of machine learning and automated decision-making. The aim is to build trust and fairness in AI applications across industries.

Since its proposal, the AI act has undergone several rounds of consultations and amendments. The final adoption is expected in 2024, with the full implementation likely to roll out over the next few years, giving companies time to adjust their operations and ensure compliance.

By 2026, AI governance will be fully enforced, and non-compliance will result in severe penalties.

Penalties for non-compliance

Like GDPR, the AI act has set forth substantial fines for companies that fail to comply. These penalties can reach up to 6% of global annual turnover, which makes compliance a critical issue for companies of all sizes. The severity of penalties is designed to deter misuse of AI, especially in high-risk sectors.

AI governance – as crucial as cybersecurity and data protection

As AI continues to revolutionize how companies function, governance over these technologies will become as important as cybersecurity or data protection. The days of adopting AI tools without oversight are ending. In the same way companies adapted to GDPR, they must now turn their attention to ensuring responsible AI practices.

For companies like Eikonice, whose SaaS product automates employee portraits, ensuring GDPR compliance for our clients – now also need to stay compliant to the new AI act.

We add an extra layer to secure our clients AI acts requirements: transparency in the AI algorithms used, clear documentation on how data – in our case, portraits – is processed and adjusted, and guarantees that AI decisions, such as cropping and adjusting photos are free from bias.

Likewise, the use of face recognition, when our GDPR compliance feature is used to delete pictures from the image bank, in which employees who no longer are employed by the company appear in.

Eikonice secure compliance to the AI act

In the case of employee portraits, companies will need to ensure that the AI processes they use comply with both GDPR and the AI act. This means ensuring that portraits are handled ethically, with no risk of bias in processing and the full consent of employees.

The EU’s AI act is set to change the landscape for how AI technologies are regulated, and companies must act now to ensure they remain compliant. For businesses that handle personal data, such as those using AI for employee portraits, the stakes are even higher. By using Eikonice the AI governance will be secured and your company will avoid penalties, but also establish trust with their clients and employees due to take GDPR and AI regulations seriously.

Employee portraits are a key part of a company’s visual identity. In a world where businesses are increasingly spread across multiple offices and locations, managing employee portraits efficiently and consistently is essential. Whether for internal use, such as directories and access control, or external-facing purposes like marketing and communication materials, an organization’s approach to handling portraits can significantly impact both culture and operational efficiency.

Before the digital revolution, companies would typically hire a professional photographer or use expensive solutions like photo robots or photo booths for employee portraits. While these methods could deliver high-quality results, they came with several drawbacks – such as:

• High Costs: Hiring photographers and maintaining photo booths or robots can be costly. In addition to the equipment or service fees, the time required for employees to coordinate and attend photography sessions adds to the expense.
• Inconsistent Quality: When relying on different photographers or equipment across various locations, companies often experienced inconsistencies in photo quality, lighting, and style, which could detract from a unified corporate image.
• Complex Management: The manual nature of organizing, storing, editing, and uploading photos across departments and platforms was cumbersome. This often resulted in delays and inefficiencies, particularly when employees changed roles or new hires came on board.

The importance of portraits in multi-location companies

For businesses with multiple offices, creating a sense of unity and a cohesive company culture is vital. Employee portraits play a critical role in fostering this cohesion by visually representing the team and the brand. However, the larger and more geographically dispersed a company becomes, the more challenging it is to maintain consistent employee portraits across locations. A unified set of employee portraits can:

• Reinforce branding: Consistent employee portraits across all locations help establish and reinforce the company’s visual identity. This is particularly important for customer-facing teams where branding consistency is crucial.
• Promote inclusion and belonging: Having a standardized approach to portraits across all offices ensures that employees, no matter their location, feel equally valued and represented.
• Streamline internal communication: Portraits in directories and on internal communication platforms, such as collaboration tools, email signatures, and intranet systems, foster familiarity between employees who may not have met in person, especially in global or remote teams.

By aligning portrait standards with corporate branding guidelines, companies can maintain consistency, strengthen their culture, and ensure employees feel part of the larger organization, regardless of where they are located.

Efficiency across all locations

To address the challenges of managing portraits in multiple locations, many companies are turning to automated solutions like Eikonice. Eikonice’s cloud-based SaaS platform eliminates manual processes, cuts costs, and ensures consistency, no matter how many locations a business has. The key features of Eikonice’s solution are:

• AI-powered automation: Eikonice’s platform automates all processes related to employee portraits, from initial capture to the final upload. It ensures every photo meets the company’s standards for branding, quality, and consistency. Adjustments like cropping, color correction, and resizing are handled automatically by the system.
• Centralized portrait management: With all portraits stored in a centralized cloud-based system, companies can easily manage, update, and synchronize images across all their platforms—whether for internal systems or external directories—without duplication of effort.
• Scalability across locations: The system is designed to scale with the company, meaning whether you have one office or 100, Eikonice can support seamless portrait management. Every new hire or role change can be quickly reflected across all platforms, ensuring up-to-date photos are always available.
• Cost efficiency: By automating the editing and uploading process, companies can reduce the costs traditionally associated with photo sessions, editing, and storage. The AI-powered solution eliminates the need for expensive photo robots or recurring professional photography services.

Embracing digital identity cards for streamlined operations

As part of an integrated Identity and Access Management (IAM) strategy, many companies are adopting digital identity cards that link directly to employee portraits. These identity cards, often used as apps on smartphones, offer several advantages:

• Enhanced security: Digital identity cards can be easily updated and synced with access control systems, ensuring only current employees have the necessary credentials to access different areas or systems.
• Operational efficiency: When portraits are integrated into digital identity cards, they can be instantly updated across multiple locations, reducing the need for separate photo sessions and ensuring employee photos are always up to date.
• Improved employee experience: Digital identity cards, coupled with a streamlined portrait process, create a smooth onboarding experience for new hires, as photos are uploaded quickly, and their credentials are issued in real time.

Eikonice supports this digital transformation by offering tools that automate the portrait integration into IAM systems, making it easier to manage employee identities across various offices while keeping everything compliant with GDPR.

Eikonice is the prove of, that managing employee portraits across multiple locations doesn’t need to be a costly, time-consuming, or disjointed process. With automation, AI-driven tools, and centralized management systems like Eikonice, companies can ensure their employee portraits are consistent, high-quality, and compliant with data protection regulations. By incorporating digital identity cards as part of an IAM strategy, businesses can further streamline their operations and enhance both security and employee satisfaction. Embracing these best practices not only saves time and money – but very important, also strengthens company culture across geographically dispersed teams.

In today’s world, businesses are prioritizing inclusivity, and it is essential for this commitment to be visible at every level, including employee portraits. Portraits are more than just photos; they are a powerful reflection of an organization’s workforce and its values. Inclusive employee portraits play a vital role in representing the diversity of gender, ethnicity, age, and abilities across the company. As the business landscape becomes increasingly global, companies need to ensure that their portraits not only show diversity but also celebrate the individuality of each employee.

And Eikonice, has revolutionized how companies manage employee portraits, eliminating manual processes and ensuring GDPR compliance while offering advanced AI-driven automation. Through streamlined workflows and cultural sensitivity, companies can now showcase diverse and authentic employee portraits in a cost-effective, efficient, and respectful manner.

The role of inclusive employee portraits in representing workforce diversity

Inclusive employee portraits go beyond merely reflecting the demographic makeup of a company; they visually demonstrate a company’s commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). In the future, there will be a stronger focus on ensuring that portrait styles, lighting, and settings are devoid of stereotypes and biases. Companies will take conscious steps to present employees in authentic, empowering ways, celebrating their uniqueness without confining them to outdated visual norms.

When a company’s workforce is represented inclusively, employees feel valued and recognized. The impact is far-reaching, with inclusive portraits fostering a stronger sense of belonging and engagement. In industries where diversity is critical to innovation and progress, showcasing a visually inclusive workforce is a core strategy for building credibility and trust both internally and externally.

The impact of inclusive portraits on organizational belonging and engagement

Inclusive portraits aren’t just about what the outside world sees; they have a profound impact within the organization itself. When employees are actively involved in choosing how they are represented, it leads to a deeper emotional connection with the company’s values. Portraits become a means of celebrating the diversity that makes a company strong.

The inclusion of diverse employee portraits on internal communication platforms, corporate websites, and marketing materials shows that the company not only acknowledges diversity but celebrates it. For companies with global offices, this approach ensures that employees from different regions and backgrounds feel equally valued and recognized. By fostering a visual representation of global unity, companies reinforce their commitment to DEI on a global scale.

The role of technology and automation in creating inclusive portraits

One of the greatest challenges of managing employee portraits is ensuring consistency, personalization, and compliance across large, diverse workforces. Eikonice’s advanced SaaS platform eliminates these concerns by automating the entire process—from planning and editing to the final upload of high-resolution, cropped, and colour-adjusted portraits across all platforms.

With automation powered by AI, companies can save time and costs, as the labor-intensive processes associated with portrait editing are minimized. What makes this even more remarkable is that it’s done while ensuring complete GDPR compliance. Eikonice’s cloud-based system automates the continuous handling of portraits, ensuring every employee’s individuality is respected without compromising efficiency.

The future of inclusive employee portraits

Looking to the future, the role of inclusive portraits will become even more critical as companies strive to align their visual branding with their DEI initiatives. AI and automation will enable greater personalization, providing tailored portrait solutions that respect employees’ individual identities while maintaining company-wide consistency.

Companies that invest in inclusive employee portrait practices are making a powerful statement: that every employee matters and deserves to be seen, not just as a part of the workforce – but as an individual with a unique identity. As diversity becomes central to business success, inclusive portraits will be at the forefront of this cultural shift, helping companies foster a sense of belonging and connection across their entire workforce.

It’s not a showcase – it’s a strategy towards success

Inclusive employee portraits are about more than just showcasing diversity; they are a way for companies to actively engage in DEI efforts, reinforce a sense of belonging, and celebrate individuality. Eikonice’s technology-driven solution allows businesses to streamline this process while ensuring accuracy, efficiency, and GDPR compliance.

It’s time for companies to embrace the future of employee portraits, creating a visual narrative that reflects the diversity and strength of their workforce. With Eikonice, companies can ensure that every portrait tells a story of inclusion, respect, and unity. Because it makes a difference and is a way for success.

Managing employee portraits used to be a labor-intensive process, especially for large or global organizations. HR teams often spent countless hours updating profiles, directories, and ID cards manually. Inconsistencies were common, with outdated or incorrect images leading to confusion, especially when employees were promoted or transferred.

Eikonice changes all of this by integrating portrait management directly into digital HR systems. Through automation, employee profiles are updated in real time. When an employee is promoted, their portrait is instantly synced with internal directories, ID cards, and other platforms without any need for manual input. This not only saves time but also reduces the potential for human error.

Looking to the future, AI-powered tools will further enhance these processes. For example, real-time updates will become standard, with AI seamlessly managing portrait changes as employees transition between roles, departments, or locations. This shift from manual to automated portrait handling represents a major leap forward for HR teams worldwide.

Cross-platform synchronization for global operations

As businesses expand globally, managing employee portraits across various platforms can become a significant challenge. Different regions and teams often use different communication tools, and keeping everything up to date is no small feat.

Cross-platform synchronization will be the key to managing this complexity. HR systems will seamlessly integrate with internal communication platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams, as well as external platforms like LinkedIn and email signatures. This means that when an employee’s portrait is updated in the central HR system, it will automatically reflect across all digital touchpoints, both internally and externally.

This integration is particularly valuable for large, multi-location companies, as it ensures brand consistency and up-to-date employee visuals across all platforms. Moreover, as the workforce grows, the system can scale effortlessly, reducing the need for HR teams to intervene manually in updating portraits across different channels.

AI-driven insights from employee portrait data

While employee portraits were once static assets, AI is transforming them into a source of valuable data for HR teams. Beyond simply storing images, future HR systems will use AI to analyse portrait data for a variety of applications.

For instance, facial recognition technology could be employed for secure access control within company facilities. By linking portrait data with entry systems, companies can enhance security and ensure that only authorized personnel gain access to sensitive areas.

Additionally, AI can play a crucial role in analysing diversity metrics. By evaluating portrait data, companies can gain insights into the diversity of their workforce, aiding in the tracking and reporting of inclusion initiatives. AI can also detect changes in portrait data, such as unauthorized use of images, which could be valuable for preventing security breaches.

The big thing here is, that use of AI in portrait data management not only improves security and diversity tracking but also empowers HR teams to make more informed, data-driven decisions about the workforce.

Ensuring GDPR compliance in portrait handling

With the increasing use of digital portraits comes the responsibility of ensuring that data is handled in compliance with privacy regulations, like GDPR. Managing personal data such as employee portraits requires careful attention to consent, storage, and usage.

Eikonice’s cloud-based system ensures that every step of the portrait management process adheres to GDPR requirements. Employee portraits are securely stored, and any changes or updates are tracked to ensure compliance with privacy regulations. This reduces the risk of breaches and ensures that companies avoid hefty fines associated with GDPR non-compliance.

As privacy regulations evolve, particularly with the upcoming AI act, companies will need to stay vigilant. The integration of AI into portrait handling brings new opportunities but also new responsibilities. Ensuring that AI applications comply with privacy laws will be critical to maintaining trust with employees and customers alike.

The integration of employee portraits into digital HR systems is transforming how companies manage their workforce. Automated workflows, cross-platform synchronization, and AI-driven insights are not only making HR processes more efficient but also ensuring security, diversity, and GDPR compliance. As the future unfolds, solutions like Eikonice will continue to lead the way in streamlining portrait management while empowering companies to stay ahead in the digital transformation of HR.

If your organization is looking to optimize its HR systems, you should definitely gain experience and explore how Eikonice can help revolutionize the company’s portrait management.

4 års kamp med Skattestyrelsen er afsluttet for den danske virksomhed, Eikonice, der har vundet en betydningsfuld sag i Landsskatteretten vedrørende skattekreditordningen.

Virksomheden anmodede for skatteårene 2016-2018 om refusion af omkostninger efter skattekreditordningen som led i udvikling af et IT-system til billedbehandling baseret på AI. Efter modtagelse af ansøgningen for 2018 indledte Skattestyrelsen en undersøgelse af Eikonice og afviste anvendelse af ordningen for alle tre år; og Eikonice stod derfor for at betale alle udbetalte beløb tilbage med tillæg af renter.

Eikonice klagede over afgørelsen og efter et overordentligt komplekst og langstrakt forløb har Landsskatteretten nu – 4 år efter klagetidspunktet og 8 år efter det første relevante indkomstår – givet Eikonice fuldt medhold i sagen og derved tilsidesat Skattestyrelsens afgørelse.

Eikonices administrerende direktør og grundlægger, Jørgen Bødker, udtaler:

“Det handler om, at SKAT ønsker at etablere præcedens, men for os som start-up handler det om, at vi mister tid og fokus, hvilket er det mest dyrebare for iværksættere. I dag har vi vundet, og det er selvfølgelig en god følelse, men jeg kan ikke lade være med at tænke på, hvor meget længere vi kunne være nået, hvis vi havde brugt vores tid og penge på udvikling af Eikonice. Fakta er, at denne sag har forhindret os i at starte en scale-up proces og at SKAT har gjort det umuligt for os at udvikle vores markedspotentiale de sidste 4 år.”

En berygtet skattefælde

Skattekreditordningen blev indført med virkning fra 2012 med det formål at sikre danske virksomheders investering i forskning og udvikling for dermed øge den danske konkurrenceevne. Kreditten udbetales til underskudsgivende virksomheder og har derfor en væsentlig likviditetsmæssig betydning for start-ups og vækstvirksomheder.

Tusindvis af danske virksomheder har investeret i udvikling i forventning om udnyttelse af ordningen. Skattestyrelsen har imidlertid håndteret reglerne meget restriktivt, hvilket har givet anledning til omfattende kritik. Flere organisationer og rådgivere har anbefalet virksomhederne direkte at undlade at anvende skattekreditordningen på grund af den medfølgende usikkerhed og meget restriktive tolkning.

Netop de virksomheder, som har gjort brug af skattekreditordningen, er i en særligt udsat økonomisk fase, og bliver derfor ramt ekstra hårdt, når de flere år efter mødes med tilbagebetalingskrav fra Skattestyrelsen og mange virksomheder opfatter tilbagebetalingskravene som dybt urimelige.

Claus Pilgård, advokat hos Nielsen Nørager Advokatpartnerselskab, har bistået Eikonice klagesagen ved Landsskatteretten. Om udfordringerne for de enkelte virksomheder fortæller han:

”Det er tilnærmelsesvist umuligt for softwareudviklerne at dokumentere, at udviklingen kan karakteriseres som ’forsøg- og forskning’. Og det blev kun sværere efter at Østre Landsret i september sidste år tilsidesatte en tidligere lempelig fortolkning, som Landsskatteretten i enkelte tilfælde havde anlagt i relation til softwareudvikling. Det var derfor med stor glæde, vi fik nyheden om, at Landsskatteretten gav Eikonice fuldt medhold, særligt fordi Landsskatteretten er enige med os i, at det ikke bare er Eikonices teknologiudvikling – men også Eikonines videreudvikling af en standard webshop – som kan være omfattet af ordningen.”