Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how does the Department define and ensure meaningful human involvement in decisions supported or made by automated systems.

The Government does not wish to be overly prescriptive by defining meaningful human involvement, as it is context specific. ICO guidance can be more appropriate than legislation for providing such a definition or interpretation, given guidance can be more easily updated and can provide detail and nuances that legislation would not usually capture.

Current ICO guidance sets out that “human involvement [in the decision making] has to be active and not just a token gesture” to be meaningful”. It is for each data controller to determine and be able to demonstrate whether their processing includes meaningful human involvement, as this is context specific.

As such, the Government believes in the importance of the ICO continuing to provide its views on interpretation of terms used in the legislation. Our reforms do not remove the ICO's ability to do this, or to advise Parliament or the government if it considers that the law needs clarification.