Transparency in algorithmic decision-making: Ideational tensions and conceptual shifts in Finland

Abstract

This article uses a theoretical and methodological framework derived from the political theorist Quentin Skinner and the conceptual historian Reinhart Koselleck to examine ideational and conceptual tensions and shifts related to the transparency of algorithmic and other automatic governmental decision-making in Finland. Most of the research material comprises national and international official documents and semi-structured expert interviews. In Finland, the concepts of ‘algorithmic transparency’ and other ‘transparency of automatic decision-making’ are situated amongst a complex array of legal, ethical, political, policy-oriented, managerial, and technical semantic fields. From 2016 to 2019 Finland’s Deputy Ombudsman of Parliament and the Constitutional Committee of Parliament pinpointed issues in algorithmic and other automatic decision-making with the consequence that at the turn of 2019 and 2020, the Ministry of Justice started moving towards the preparation of new legislation to resolve these issues. In conclusion and as expected, Finland’s version of the Nordic tradition of the public sphere with established legal guarantees of public access to government documents indeed has both important enabling and constraining effects upon resolving the transparency issues.

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