“Meaningful Information” and the Right to Explanation

Andrew Selbst, Julia Powles
Proceedings of the 1st Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency, PMLR 81:48-48, 2018.

Abstract

There is no single, neat statutory provision labeled the “right to explanation” in Europe’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). But nor is such a right illusory. Responding to two prominent papers that, in turn, conjure and critique the right to explanation in the context of automated decision-making, we advocate a return to the text of the GDPR. Articles 13–15 provide rights to “meaningful information about the logic involved” in automated decisions. This is a right to explanation, whether one uses the phrase or not. The right to explanation should be interpreted functionally, flexibly, and should, at a minimum, enable a data subject to exercise his or her rights under the GDPR and human rights law.

Cite this Paper

BibTeX
@InProceedings{pmlr-v81-selbst18a, title = {“Meaningful Information” and the Right to Explanation}, author = {Selbst, Andrew and Powles, Julia}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 1st Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency}, pages = {48--48}, year = {2018}, editor = {Friedler, Sorelle A. and Wilson, Christo}, volume = {81}, series = {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research}, month = {23--24 Feb}, publisher = {PMLR}, pdf = {http://proceedings.mlr.press/v81/selbst18a/selbst18a.pdf}, url = {https://proceedings.mlr.press/v81/selbst18a.html}, abstract = {There is no single, neat statutory provision labeled the “right to explanation” in Europe’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). But nor is such a right illusory. Responding to two prominent papers that, in turn, conjure and critique the right to explanation in the context of automated decision-making, we advocate a return to the text of the GDPR. Articles 13–15 provide rights to “meaningful information about the logic involved” in automated decisions. This is a right to explanation, whether one uses the phrase or not. The right to explanation should be interpreted functionally, flexibly, and should, at a minimum, enable a data subject to exercise his or her rights under the GDPR and human rights law.} }
Endnote
%0 Conference Paper %T “Meaningful Information” and the Right to Explanation %A Andrew Selbst %A Julia Powles %B Proceedings of the 1st Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency %C Proceedings of Machine Learning Research %D 2018 %E Sorelle A. Friedler %E Christo Wilson %F pmlr-v81-selbst18a %I PMLR %P 48--48 %U https://proceedings.mlr.press/v81/selbst18a.html %V 81 %X There is no single, neat statutory provision labeled the “right to explanation” in Europe’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). But nor is such a right illusory. Responding to two prominent papers that, in turn, conjure and critique the right to explanation in the context of automated decision-making, we advocate a return to the text of the GDPR. Articles 13–15 provide rights to “meaningful information about the logic involved” in automated decisions. This is a right to explanation, whether one uses the phrase or not. The right to explanation should be interpreted functionally, flexibly, and should, at a minimum, enable a data subject to exercise his or her rights under the GDPR and human rights law.
APA
Selbst, A. & Powles, J.. (2018). “Meaningful Information” and the Right to Explanation. Proceedings of the 1st Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency, in Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 81:48-48 Available from https://proceedings.mlr.press/v81/selbst18a.html.

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