Design ethical services Make sure that everyone receives fair treatment. Comply with ethical guidelines in the design and use of systems which automate decision making (such as the use of artificial intelligence). Guidance: Design ethical services Designing ethical systems means that systems created by the government ensures that everyone receives equitable treatment. Services should address client needs and provide public benefits. In the digital age, the underlying systems that run Canada’s services come to conclusions that can be opaque to both the external users, and those managing the systems. Efforts are required to increase the transparency and address potential biases of computational decisions, and to ensure that decisions made or supported using these systems are legal, consistent, accurate and align with the expectations and intents of those managing them. The responsible use of automated-decision systems includes being open about their use and being able to explain how decisions are made. Through iterative service design where results are continuously monitored against expected and desired outcomes, the organization positions itself to ensure it is designing ethical services. Furthermore, with extensive monitoring solutions, one must ensure their services are not enforcing biases, whether conscious or unconscious. Aligned Behaviours 1. Our team continually seeks out indicators of bias and ensures their services are not reinforcing unintended biases. 2. Our team continually seeks out evidence of unintended consequences to the user in service design and delivery and works to mitigate these consequences for the user. 3. When automated decision-making is being leveraged by our team, possible biases in the data and algorithms are acknowledged, accounted for, and mitigated. 4. Our team designs services which address cultural, linguistic, geographical, disability, technological, socioeconomic, or other access barriers to uptake. 5. Our team has considered the impacts of decisions on the users and negative outcomes are reduced, when encountered. 6. Our team uses data in a manner consistent with the purpose of its collection. Misaligned Behaviours 1. No training is provided to our team regarding the potential impacts of the service they are designing or delivering. 2. Our team conducts little to no monitoring of outcomes of the service to identify implicit bias. 3. Our team delegates ethical analysis to a vendor or external service, without direct accountability to management. 4. Our team designs and deliver services without fully considering relevant legislation 5. Our team delivers services without assessing the impacts of negative outcomes.