Use of Automated Decision-making by Government: Consultation Paper
The Law Council of Australia provided a submission to contribute to the Attorney-General’s Department’s November 2024 Consultation Paper on the use of automated decision-making (ADM) by government.
The Law Council commends the Department on its robust and thoughtful Consultation Paper. The Law Council notes that, following the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme (Robodebt Royal Commission), the Australian Government has committed to considering opportunities for legislative reform to introduce a consistent framework for ADM in service delivery by public sector agencies.1
The development of such a framework is imperative, given that there is an increased reliance at the Commonwealth level on the use of computer programs to exercise statutory powers and functions – including to make, and assist in making, administrative decisions – instead of human officials. These decisions can directly impact the lives of individuals, such as in respect of social security, health, criminal justice, and housing.
The Robodebt scandal particularly highlighted the importance of transparency and creator/user accountability to civil society with the increased adoption of automated systems, and the training and use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. These considerations are not specific to the Australian context – the Post Office Horizon IT scandal in the United Kingdom has clearly demonstrated that government institutions can have unwarranted confidence in technology which, in the case of the British Post Office, has taken more than two decades to correct.2
In Australia, the principles governing automated systems are the Australian AI Ethics Principles that form part of Australia’s AI Ethics Framework.3 The AI Ethics Principles were published in 2019 and dictate the ways in which AI systems (encompassing ADM) should operate to meet ethical standards, on a macro level only.4
Read the full submission below.
1 Attorney-General’s Department, Use of automated decision-making by government (Consultation Paper, November 2024) 6; Australian Government, Government Response: Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme (November 2023) 21.
2 Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry (Web Page, 2024); BBC, Post Office Horizon scandal: Why hundreds were wrongly prosecuted (Online, 31 July 2024).
3 Department of Industry, Sciences and Resources (Cth), Australia’s Artificial Intelligence Ethics Principles (Web Page, 11 October 2024).
4 Catherine Holmes AC SC, Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme (Report, July 2023) 479.
Last Updated on 30/01/2025
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