New EFF Report Provides Guidance to Ensure Human Rights are Protected Amid Government Use of AI in Latin America

Governments increasingly rely on algorithmic systems to support consequential assessments and determinations about people’s lives, from judging eligibility for social assistance to trying to predict crime and criminals. Latin America is no exception. With the use of artificial intelligence (AI) posing human rights challenges in the region, EFF released  today the report Inter-American Standards and State Use of AI for Rights-Affecting Determinations in Latin America: Human Rights Implications and Operational Framework.

This report draws on international human rights law, particularly standards from the Inter-American Human Rights System, to provide guidance on what state institutions must look out for when assessing whether and how to adopt artificial intelligence AI and automated decision-making (ADM) systems for determinations that can affect people’s rights.

We organized the report’s content and testimonies on current challenges from civil society experts on the ground in our project landing page.

AI-based Systems Implicate Human Rights

The report comes amid deployment of AI/ADM-based systems by Latin American state institutions for services and decision-making that affects human rights. Colombians must undergo classification from Sisbén, which measures their degree of poverty and vulnerability, if they want to access social protection programs. News reports in Brazil have once again flagged the problems and perils of Córtex, an algorithmic-powered surveillance system that cross-references various state databases with wide reach and poor controls. Risk-assessment systems seeking to predict school dropout, children’s rights violations or teenage pregnancy have integrated government related programs in countries like México, Chile, and Argentina. Different courts in the region have also implemented AI-based tools for a varied range of tasks.

EFF’s report aims to address two primary concerns: opacity and lack of human rights protections in state AI-based decision-making. Algorithmic systems are often deployed by state bodies in ways that obscure how decisions are made, leaving affected individuals with little understanding or recourse.

Additionally, these systems can exacerbate existing inequalities, disproportionately impacting marginalized communities without providing adequate avenues for redress. The lack of public  participation in the development and implementation of these systems further undermines democratic governance, as affected groups are often excluded from meaningful decision-making processes relating to government adoption and use of these technologies.

This is at odds with the human rights protections most Latin American countries are required to uphold. A majority of states have committed to comply with the American Convention on Human Rights and the Protocol of San Salvador. Under these international instruments, they have the duty to respect human rights and prevent violations from occurring. States’ responsibilities before international human rights law as guarantor of rights, and people and social groups as rights holders—entitled to call for them and participate—are two basic tenets that must guide any legitimate use of AI/ADM systems by state institutions for consequential decision-making, as we underscore in the report.

Inter-American Human Rights Framework

Building off extensive research of Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’ reports and Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ decisions and advisory opinions, we devise