Citizens' attitudes towards automated decision-making

Abstract

Public organisations are starting to show an interest in automated decision-making (ADM). So far, existing research focuses on the governmental perspective on this phenomenon. Less attention is paid to citizens’ views on ADM. The aim of this study is to provide empirical insights into citizen awareness of and beliefs about ADM in public-sector services. To this end, we participated in an annual national survey in Sweden carried out by the SOM Institute at Gothenburg University concluding that a minority of the citizens know about the use of ADM in public-sector services. Furthermore, when computers instead of civil servants make decisions in the public-sector, citizens expect decisions by computers to become less legally secure but more impartial. They also expect ADM to take personal circumstances into account to a lesser degree and become less transparent. Finally, we found that citizens with that awareness expect decisions by computers to become more reliable and impartial. Based on our empirical findings in relation to previous research, we suggest four hypotheses on citizen’s awareness and beliefs about public-sector ADM.