In his speech, within the framework of the round table "Democracy and AI. A vision from the institutions", the president of the CTBG has stressed that Law 19/2013, of 9 December, on transparency, access to public information and good governance, recognizes access to public information as a right of broad configuration that also reaches the decisions taken by public administrations in which automated systems and algorithms intervene.
The president recalled that the Supreme Court, in the well-known ‘BOSCO judgment’, linked the principle of algorithmic transparency to the right of access to public information recognized in Article 105 of the Spanish Constitution, configuring it as a manifestation of this right.
Campos has pointed out that the guarantee function exercised by CTBG also extends to the field of digital transformation of administrations and, in particular, to the use of artificial intelligence. In this regard, he recalled that numerous complaints have been filed with the Council regarding access to information on algorithmic and AI systems used by the Administration, in areas such as pension calculation mechanisms or the drawing of lots for the composition of courts for selective processes.
From this position as guarantor body, he explained, the Council wants to promote in this area not only the right of access to information, but also active transparency, advocating instruments such as algorithm registers. "Algorithmic opacity is not just a technical problem, but a matter of democratic control," he said.
In his opinion, accepting spaces of opacity in the functioning of systems that influence public decision-making would mean creating zones immune to citizen control precisely where public action presents greater technological complexity. For this reason, he has defended that transparency in the use of artificial intelligence is essential to generate confidence in the actions of public authorities and to reinforce the values of the social and democratic state of law enshrined in the Constitution.
For this reason, Campos has welcomed the initiative 'Charter of principles to guarantee the democratic use of artificial intelligence', an international project that leads Pietro Falletta, of the Università dell’Insubria/LUISS of Rome and who in Spain heads the Chair of Administrative Law of the University of Castilla-La Mancha Susana de la Sierra. This project places transparency within an architecture of rights linked to dignity, freedom and equality and citizenship.
The President of the Spanish Data Protection Agency also participated in the round table. Lorenzo Cotino, and the director of the Spanish Agency for Supervision of Artificial Intelligence, Alberto Gago. He has moderated Isaac Martín Delgado, Professor of Administrative Law at the University of Castilla-La Mancha.
