The Supreme Court accepted on Tuesday the key point of view for the future of transparency in the public sector. For the first time, magistrates should decide whether the source code of the algorithm used by the state, citizens. The resolution will consist in the precedent of whether the administration should disclose all the details of these automated decision -making systems, which is an important problem in the era in which artificial intelligence also begins to win participation in state institutions.
The oral gaze itself takes into account its importance. In the highest and even more in the controversial administrative direction, the submitted majority of cases are allowed in writing. In the center of the case is Bosos, an algorithm that determines which houses can access a social bonus of light.
The trial began in 2018, when the Civio Citizen Foundation requested the Ministry of Environmental Crossing and the demographic task of the Bosco source code along with its technical specifications and test results through the transparency portal. The main documentation to control how the algorithm makes decisions, and if it correctly provides assistance to those who have the right to them.
The ministry, then director Teresa River, did not respond to a demand. Given the absence of an answer, Civio resorts to transparency and the good state council (CTBG), an agency that controls this public administration, complies with the Law on Transparency. This partially appreciated his statement: the documents that explained “what the program does and how” and “test cases” were delivered, but the mining code was refused the consideration that it was protected by intellectual property.
Then Civio took the case to court. He passed the sports administrative court and the national court. There were two failures for the fund and their desire to open the code of public algorithms. Both cases not only agreed with the resolution of the Council on transparency with regard to the fact that the protection of intellectual property was a sufficient justification for maintaining the power of the Boszor’s power sites in the safe, but also believes that the denial of access was justified for other reasons.
The main guarantee of public security and the guarantee of the confidentiality of personal data that the government guarantees that the source code of the algorithm was known, two arguments that CTBG initially discarded.
Safety appeal
State propaganda was supported by expert reports (including one of the National Cryptological Center, in accordance with CNI and was responsible for the cybersecurity of state institutions; and another ministry of digital transformation), which came to the conclusion that the revelation of the initial code of administrative algorithms increases the seriousness of potential gaps in the state computer.
“These vulnerabilities can be used to access the databases related to the application that collect specially protected data, such as the disability or state of the victim of gender violence by the applicant,” the cryptological center reports: “Knowledge of the source code increases the risk that the exploitation of vulnerability can affect national safety, social security or safety or safety controlled “.
Civio resolutely denied this argument. He considered this “outdated” and argued that, on the contrary, transparency and open source code allow the organizations of the Society to investigate and check the system, which ultimately “avoids damage”, increasing the possibility of detecting these possible security failures in the code.
In addition, he argued that the government endowed the table with “uncertain and not proven risks” in order not to give more information about Bosco, when the tendency is to increase the transparency of algorithms both at the national and international level. Among other things, he gave examples of Radarovich, Riscanvi (an algorithm that evaluates the risk of recidivism of prisoners in Catalonia) or judicial procedures of the United States or Italy, where the judges failed in favor of the opening of the Code of automatic decision -making programs.
Higher decision
This change in the main argument of the case by the government (from intellectual ownership to security) in the trial left the feeling of “defenseless” in Civio, since at first it seemed that the trial was directed in another way. In fact, the fund requested in its appeal to the Supreme Court that it was a debate about the initial resolution of the Council on transparency, which limited access to information in accordance with the intellectual property of Bosocas.
Magistrates, however, were very interested in the aspect of security during the point of view of this Tuesday in a high court. State lawying warned that providing access to the source code of the algorithm would be similar to openly informing about the “plans and safety” of the public building, allowing someone to know how to attack it. He also denied the possibility of providing access only to part of the Code, which, like him, would jeopardize the integrity of the entire system.
Another of the arguments of the government is that there is no need to make the Bosco code transparent, since this is only a “tool” whose solutions are “controlled” and may be appealed. The fact that Civio also rejected.
“The algorithm is not a pencil”, protesting Eva Belmont, the co -author of the fund, in a conversation with Eldiario.es. “The argument of this government and almost all administrations that deny access to the algorithms is that they are only tools, this technology is neutral. But this is not so. If there is an algorithm that affects the decision of the public body, we have the right to know how it works and to what extent it affects, ”he acts.
“This is for me, the background of the question: if you do not know how the technology works, you can strain something,” warns Belmon.
The magistrates now have a solution that will surpass the Bosocas. His resolution, which can come to Iinhabil Augustus, will note to which citizens can access the internal functioning of public algorithms at a time when these instruments more and more affect the key decisions of the administration.
