Data and automated systems

A division of the Defender keeps the register of every machine used in administration, planning, allocation and provision, and orders the prohibited ones to stop.

Article 51(5): a decision producing legal effects upon a person is taken by a human being who is identified and accountable. Automated systems may assist, and may in no case decide.

Article 51(6): every person may obtain the reasons for a decision affecting them, including the logic, inputs and weightings of any system that assisted it, and may require review by a person who had no part in the original decision.

Article 254(3): the division verifies compliance, orders the cessation of a prohibited system, and its order may be set aside by no organ except a court.

Public register of automated systems

This register states, for every system, its purpose, its inputs, its logic and the person accountable for each decision it assists.

Sector

Status

Assignment of cases to judges In use

Courts of the Republic, all divisions

Purpose: Draw cases by lot upon the order of receipt.
Inputs: Order of receipt. Nothing else.
Logic: Published draw, verifiable by any person. No parameter weights any case toward any judge.
Accountable: The registrar of the receiving court, named on every assignment order.
Record: Audited jointly with the Audit Office. Last audit 1 July 2026.

Registration of needs, aggregation In use

Planning Secretariat, national and regional

Purpose: Aggregate the need declarations into the inputs of the plan.
Inputs: Declarations lodged by residents, anonymised at source.
Logic: Sum by category and territory. No scoring of any person and no ranking of any household.
Accountable: The delegate of the territory publishing the aggregate.
Record: Verified against the raw declarations at each planning round.

Housing allocation queue, Lindoma In use

Communal housing service, Lindoma

Purpose: Order applications by the criteria organic law fixes for the allocation of dwellings.
Inputs: Household size, medical need, present conditions, date of application.
Logic: Weights published in full. A person may obtain the calculation for their own application.
Accountable: The housing officer of the commune, named on every decision.
Record: Two complaints upheld in 2026. Weighting of present conditions republished after a finding that the earlier text was unintelligible.

Predictive placement of patrols Ordered to cease

Public order service, Eastern Region

Purpose: Estimate where officers should be placed, from records of past reports.
Inputs: Reports of incidents by location and hour, over six years.
Logic: Gradient model over a grid. Profiling by neighbourhood, which reaches persons through where they live.
Accountable: None was named. The absence of an accountable person was itself a breach of Article 51(5).
Record: Ordered to cease by the division on 14 May 2026. The order stands until a court sets it aside, and no court has been asked to.

Triage of maintenance requests In use

Communal building service, Sornorum

Purpose: Order repair requests by risk to the occupant.
Inputs: Category of defect, dwelling age, presence of a child or a person needing care.
Logic: Published rule table. A person may require review by an officer who took no part in the original decision.
Accountable: The maintenance officer of the district.
Record: No complaint upheld since the register opened.

Scoring of applicants for training places Ordered to cease

Regional training service, Western Region

Purpose: Rank applicants for oversubscribed places.
Inputs: Prior results, attendance, and a conduct record held by schools.
Logic: Ranking of persons for the allocation of a place, which Article 51(7) prohibits.
Accountable: None named.
Record: Ordered to cease by the division on 2 February 2026. Places now allocated by the published criteria applied by a person, with reasons given to each applicant.

What is prohibited outright

Article 51(7) prohibits systems that score, rank or profile persons for the allocation of provision, of housing and of the other things it lists.

Article 265(1)(m) makes void, whoever adopts it and by whatever majority, the registration, classification or scoring of persons or associations by opinion or by ideology.

Two systems have been ordered to cease. The training service ranked applicants for oversubscribed places, which is the scoring of persons for an allocation within Article 51(7). The public order service placed patrols from six years of incident records, which profiles residents by locality and so reaches identifiable persons.

An order of the division stands until a court sets it aside. Neither order has been challenged. Article 254(3) places the power to set an order aside in the courts alone, and in no other organ.

Obtaining the reasons for a decision

A person concerned by a decision is entitled to the reasons, the logic, the inputs and the weightings of any system that assisted it, and to review by a person who took no part in the original decision. The request is made to the body that decided. A refusal, or an answer that cannot be understood, is a matter for complaint to the Defender.

Article 51(2) also entitles a person to know what data concerning that person are held, by whom and to what end, and to obtain rectification and erasure. Article 51(3) voids any consent obtained as a condition of access to an essential service.

Matters audited by the division

The division audits the assignment system of Article 201 jointly with the Audit Office, and conducts the audits Article 245(4)(g) requires before each use of electronic voting. The first is a check that cases really do reach judges by lot. The second is a condition on which the lawfulness of an electronic ballot depends.

Both audits are published in full. The assignment audit of 1 July 2026 is open, and the last electronic voting audit preceded the communal ballots of March 2026.