Six things CCOs need to know about ICO's AI guidance

The 122-page publication, called "Explaining decisions made with AI" and written in conjunction with The Alan Turing Institute, the U.K.'s national center for AI, hopes to ensure organizations can be transparent about how AI-generated decisions are made, as well as ensure clear accountability about who can be held responsible for them so that affected individuals can ask for an explanation. It does not directly reference AI or any associated technologies such as machine learning. However, the General Data Protection Regulation (and the U.K.'s 2018 Data Protection Act) does have a significant focus on large-scale automated processing of personal data, and several provisions specifically refer to the use of profiling and automated decision-making. This means data protection law applies to the use of AI to provide a prediction or recommendation about someone. The ICO suggests compliance teams (including the DPO) and senior management should expect assurances from the product manager that the system the organization is using provides the appropriate level of explanation to decision recipients.