On 8 April 2020, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted the Recommendation CM/Rec(2020)1 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on the human rights impacts of algorithmic systems. It is the Council’s inter-governmental instrument aimed at ensuring that any design, development and ongoing deployment of algorithmic systems occur in compliance with human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The Recommendation adopts the guidelines that are designed to advise member States of the Council of Europe, public and private sector actors, on how to ensure effective protection of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all individuals, in all their actions regarding the design, development and ongoing deployment of algorithmic systems.

According to the document member States must review their legislative frameworks and policies as well as their own practices with respect to the procurement, design, development and ongoing deployment of algorithmic systems to ensure that they are in line with the guidelines set out in the appendix to this recommendation; promote their implementation in all relevant areas and evaluate the effectiveness of the measures taken at regular intervals, with the participation of all relevant stakeholders.

For the purposes of this Recommendation, “algorithmic systems” are understood as applications that, often using mathematical optimisation techniques, perform one or more tasks such as gathering, combining, cleaning, sorting, classifying and inferring data, as well as selection, prioritisation, the making of recommendations and decision making.  Relying on one or more algorithms to fulfill their requirements in the settings in which they are applied, algorithmic systems automate activities in a way that allows the creation of adaptive services at scale and in real time.

The Recommendation CM/Rec(2020)1 has been translated into the Ukrainian language by the experts of the National Council of TV and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine, in particular in compliance with the requirements of paragraph 2 of the Recommendation.

The original text is available here.