The OECD.AI Policy Navigator

On 12 February 2020 the European Parliament adopted a resolution on automated decision-making processes: ensuring consumer protection and free movement of goods and services.

This resolution was adopted in 2020 and focuses on automated decision making in the context of consumer protection. It calls for a review of existing laws such as consumer law, product safety legislation and market surveillance. The document advocates for a risk-based approach to regulation that reflects different contexts and types of technology and expresses the need for additional legal safeguards. The resolution highlights the need for proper information about systems for consumers, who should be properly informed about how it functions, about how to reach a human with decision-making powers and about how the system's decisions can be checked and corrected'. The resolution also calls for additional human oversight: humans must always be ultimately responsible for, and able to overrule, decisions that are taken in the context of professional services' and the use of high-quality of data and explainable and unbiased algorithms.' The Resolution will be put before the EU Council and the Commission for consideration.The initiative has the following objectives:- To reinforce information rights of consumers when interacting with virtual assistants and chatbots, for a risk-based approach to regulation in these areas, and for internal review structures in businesses to remedy mistakes in automated decisions.