MPs call on the UK Government to take urgent action on AI accountability
The All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Future of Work publishes the final report from the APPG’s Inquiry into AI and surveillance in the workplace.
The New Frontier: Artificial intelligence at work reveals how AI is transforming work and working lives across the country in ways that have outpaced existing regulation.
The APPG’s launched the Inquiry in May 2021 in response to growing public concern about AI and surveillance in the workplace, and the Institute for the Future of Work’s report on the gigification of work. Running from May to July 2021, the Inquiry examined the use and implications of surveillance and other AI technologies used at work, as well as explore practical policy solutions.
The recommendations are aimed at ensuring our AI ecosystem is genuinely human-centred, principles-driven and accountable to shape a future of better work. They are centred around a proposal for an Accountability for Algorithms Act (‘the AAA’).
Key recommendations
An Accountability for Algorithms Act: The Act would establish a simple, new corporate and public sector duty to undertake, disclose and act on pre-emptive Algorithmic Impact Assessments (AIA).
Updating digital protection: The AAA would raise the floor of essential protection for workers in response to specific gaps in protection from adverse impacts of powerful but invisible algorithmic systems.
Enabling a partnership approach: To boost a partnership approach and recognise the collective dimension of data processing, some additional collective rights are needed for unions and specialist third sector organisations to exercise new duties on members or other groups’ behalf.
Enforcement in practice: The joint Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF) should be expanded with new powers to create certification schemes, suspend use or impose terms and issue cross-cutting statutory guidance, to supplement the work of individual regulators and sector-specific standards.
Supporting human-centred AI: The principles of ‘good work’ should be recognised as fundamental values, incorporating fundamental rights and freedoms under national and international law, to guide development and application of a human-centred AI Strategy.
For further information please contact Dora Meredith.