Innovation and Regulation: Attaining and Maintaining Transparency and Accountability in Automated Decision-Making

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Within society, Automated Decision-Making (ADM) (a decision with no human involvement) is increasing. The retail sector uses ADM to profile and personalise content to its customers through Recommender Systems (RS). RS takes the information the organisation knows or perceives about an individual or group of people and applies an algorithm that predicts and recommends future purchases. RS's perceived benefits are that the individual sees content that is more relevant to them and is cost-effective to organisations, and increases sales. As online retail grew over 30% between 2015-2018, and April 2020 saw e-commerce sales grow by 209%, keeping abreast of consumer interests and habits is particularly important for organisations to optimise survival chances. In contrast, RS present many challenges for individuals and society, primarily around privacy. As they work behind the scenes, many individuals may be unaware of RS, and studies continue to understand more about the ethical challenges and their real impact upon society. This research concentrates on the policy aspects of RS with the General Data Protection Regulation. We seek to understand how organisations interpret this technology's use in line with the GDPR, particularly the application and distinction between general profiling activity, decision-making based upon profiling and automated individual decision-making, including profiling. The GDPR is a key starting point as its general design is to bring clearer rights for individuals and provide more obligations and consequences for organisations. While the GDPR does not define transparency, we mean being 'clear, open and honest' to all and by accountability, we mean 'taking responsibility' and 'demonstrating compliance'.To understand the current position regarding elements of transparency and accountability, we will consider the organisation's publicly available information and make use of our individual rights. Semi-structured interviews with organisations, individuals and regulators will also provide wide stakeholder feedback on RS transparency and accountability, both on the present position and what they feel may improve matters. Overall, the project aims to understand the balance between organisations, individuals and society and make appropriate recommendations to inform the future regulation of ADM in RS for societal good.