automated decision-making
In plain wordsWhen a computer system, rather than a person, makes or effectively makes a decision about someone — such as approving credit, screening job applicants or flagging possible welfare fraud.
Decision-making in which a computer system effectively settles an outcome for an individual, with human involvement absent or nominal; it often rests on profiling, the automated evaluation of personal characteristics to predict behavior or traits. Data-protection law treats it as a distinct risk. Article 22 of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets a default rule against decisions based solely on automated processing that have legal or similarly significant effects; such decisions are allowed only when needed for a contract, authorized by law or explicitly consented to, and even then the person can obtain human review and challenge the outcome. In SCHUFA (C-634/21, 2023) the Court of Justice of the EU held that a credit score can itself be such a decision when lenders rely on it decisively. California's privacy regulator adopted rules on automated decisionmaking technology (ADMT) in 2025, requiring pre-use notice, opt-out and access rights for significant decisions, with compliance due from January 2027. Much policy debate concerns what counts as meaningful human reviewhuman-in-the-loop, adj.: Describes AI systems in which a person checks, corrects or approves the machine's work at key points, rather than letting it act entirely on its own., given automation biasautomation bias, n.: The habit of trusting a computer's suggestion too much: following it even when it is wrong, or missing problems because the machine did not flag them..
Because the loan refusal was fully automated decision-making, the bank had to offer human review.
Origin
The legal concept traces to France's 1978 data-protection law and Article 15 of the EU's 1995 Data Protection Directive on 'automated individual decisions', carried forward into GDPR Article 22 (2016). The abbreviation ADM became common in policy writing around 2018–2019, for example in AlgorithmWatch's 'Automating Society' reports.
Usage note
The UK's Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 relaxed the general prohibition, allowing significant automated decisions with safeguards except where sensitive data are involved. Token human sign-off that merely rubber-stamps an output does not make a decision less automated.
Related
- right to explanationright to explanation, n.: The idea that a person affected by a decision made or shaped by an algorithm — a refused loan, a rejected job application — is entitled to a meaningful account of why.
- algorithmic impact assessmentalgorithmic impact assessment, n.: A structured review, done before and during the use of an automated system, of whom it could affect and how — such as unfair treatment or privacy harms — and what will be done about it.
- human-in-the-loophuman-in-the-loop, adj.: Describes AI systems in which a person checks, corrects or approves the machine's work at key points, rather than letting it act entirely on its own.
- automation biasautomation bias, n.: The habit of trusting a computer's suggestion too much: following it even when it is wrong, or missing problems because the machine did not flag them.
- algorithmic accountabilityalgorithmic accountability, n.: The idea that the people and organizations behind automated decision systems must be able to explain and justify those systems' effects, answer for the harm they cause, and fix it.
- Colorado AI ActColorado AI Act, prop. n.: A Colorado law, first passed in 2024, governing AI used to make important decisions about people, such as hiring, lending and housing. In 2026 it was rewritten as a narrower law that starts in 2027.
- automated employment decision toolautomated employment decision tool, n.: Software that scores, ranks or screens job candidates or employees. New York City requires employers using such tools to have them checked for bias every year and to tell applicants.
Defined in law or standards
GDPR (Reg. (EU) 2016/679), Art. 22
Mentioned in
algorithmic accountabilityalgorithmic accountability, n.: The idea that the people and organizations behind automated decision systems must be able to explain and justify those systems' effects, answer for the harm they cause, and fix it., algorithmic impact assessmentalgorithmic impact assessment, n.: A structured review, done before and during the use of an automated system, of whom it could affect and how — such as unfair treatment or privacy harms — and what will be done about it., algorithmic managementalgorithmic management, n.: When software, rather than a human manager, assigns work, sets pay, tracks performance and even disciplines or fires workers, as in ride-hailing, delivery and warehouse jobs., Blueprint for an AI Bill of RightsBlueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, prop. n.: A 2022 White House document listing five protections Americans should have when automated systems affect their lives — safety, fairness, privacy, explanation and a human alternative. It was guidance, not law., Colorado AI ActColorado AI Act, prop. n.: A Colorado law, first passed in 2024, governing AI used to make important decisions about people, such as hiring, lending and housing. In 2026 it was rewritten as a narrower law that starts in 2027., data protectiondata protection, n.: Laws and practices that control how organizations collect, use, store and share information about people, and that give people rights over it, such as seeing it or having it deleted., General Data Protection RegulationGeneral Data Protection Regulation, prop. n.: The European Union's main privacy law, in force since 2018, which controls how personal information is collected and used — including to train and run AI systems., predictive AIpredictive AI, n.: AI used to forecast outcomes about people or events, such as who will repay a loan, which patient may get sicker or which machine will fail, in order to guide decisions., right to explanationright to explanation, n.: The idea that a person affected by a decision made or shaped by an algorithm — a refused loan, a rejected job application — is entitled to a meaningful account of why., RobodebtRobodebt, prop. n.: An Australian government program that used an automated calculation to accuse hundreds of thousands of welfare recipients of owing money, often wrongly. An official inquiry later found it unfair and illegal., social scoringsocial scoring, n.: Rating people on how they behave or what they are like, then using the score to treat them worse in unrelated parts of their lives — a practice the EU has banned for AI., automated employment decision toolautomated employment decision tool, n.: Software that scores, ranks or screens job candidates or employees. New York City requires employers using such tools to have them checked for bias every year and to tell applicants., Magnifica HumanitasMagnifica Humanitas, prop. n.: Pope Leo XIV's 2026 letter to the Catholic Church and the world about artificial intelligence, arguing that AI must serve human dignity and the common good.