UK government publishes standard for algorithmic transparency

The UK government is piloting a standard to increase the transparency of algorithms used by government departments and public sector bodies to make decisions that affect citizens. According to the Cabinet Office’s Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO), the standard has two tiers. The first tier ‘includes a short description of the algorithmic tool, including how and why it is being used’. The second tier ‘includes more detailed information about how the tool works, the dataset/s that have been used to train the model and the level of human oversight’. The standard will be piloted by several public sector organisations. The CDDO will review it further based on the feedback it will receive, and will then seek the formal endorsement of the UK Data Standards Authority during 2022.