Simplification of Administrative Procedures through Fully Automated Decision-Making: The Case of Norway

Emily M Weitzenboeck

doi:10.3390/admsci11040149

Abstract

Norway has a high degree of digitalisation. In the public sector, there is a long tradition of automation of parts of case management. This includes automation of cases where a public sector body makes a so-called individual administrative decision, that is, a decision made in the exercise of public authority through which the rights or duties of one or more specified private persons are determined. In the last five years, various amendments to public sector legislation were proposed by a number of government departments and agencies in Norway to ensure that the relative administrative agency has a legal basis to carry out fully automated individual decisions. This is challenging both from an administrative law and from a data protection law standpoint. Among the main reasons for the move towards fully automated legal decision-making that are mentioned in the preparatory works to the proposed amendments are greater efficiency in decision-making, equal treatment of citizens and a claim that such decisions will be less prone to error than human decisions. This paper examines this trend in Norway and identifies the statutes and regulations that have been amended or are in the process of being amended. It analyses the measures specified in these amendments to safeguard the individual party’s rights, freedoms and legitimate interests. Finally, it discusses the tightrope that must be walked to safeguard important administrative law principles and rules such as protection from arbitrary decisions, the audi alternam partem rule and the right under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation not to be subject to fully automated decisions.

Highlights

Published: 7 December 2021Norway has a high degree of digitalisation, not least in the public sector
Both state and municipal organisations increasingly offer services digitally, and public use of such services is on the rise (Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2019; OECD 2017)
Schools Act, the Higher Vocational Act and the Integration Regulations are limited to very specific types of processing, such as the approval of foreign education/training, the computation of multiple-choice tests results in certain specific exams, or the processing in a specific system, other legal basis are worded more broadly to encompass virtually all processing that is necessary to enable the particular public sector body to perform its public tasks or to exercise official authority

Summary

Introduction

Published: 7 December 2021Norway has a high degree of digitalisation, not least in the public sector. In 2020, Norway was ranked thirteenth in the United Nations (“UN”) e-government survey of digitalization in the public sector out of a total of 193 countries (UN 2020). Both state and municipal organisations increasingly offer services digitally, and public use of such services is on the rise (Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2019; OECD 2017). The availability of massive troves of data (Big Data) coupled with access and increased computing power at a lower cost than ever before, have facilitated the use of more automation in case processing (Norwegian Ministry of Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs 2012–2013). In various white papers and strategy documents, the increased automation of case processing, as well as the full or partial automation of administrative procedures have broadly been seen as positive and desirous aims by the Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations

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