Public Law and Technology Archives

What we do

Technology is rapidly changing how government makes decisions and the avenues by which people can challenge those decisions.

The UK Government already uses algorithms and big data to make decisions across a vast range of areas, including tax, welfare, criminal justice, immigration and social care. A sweeping program to digitise the courts and tribunals system is currently underway.

Through research, training and litigation, PLP aims to ensure that these changes deliver better public decision-making and greater access to justice.

Our ultimate goals in this area are to ensure that:

Automated decision-making is fair and lawful, and that meaningful public law remedies are available when things go wrong
The increasingly digitalised justice system operates fairly, lawfully and accessibly

Scroll down to see more examples of our work in this area.

News & Updates

Machine learning used to stop Universal Credit payments

The Department of Work and Pensions’ 2021-22 accounts published last week revealed that it has been trialling a machine learning algorithm to detect fraud in Universal Credit claims and expects soon to use the model to stop payments before they are even made.

Policy briefings and submissions

Queen’s Speech: our briefings to parliamentarians

Brexit Freedoms Bill and Data Reform Bill: what are the risks and opportunities?

Events

Judicial Review Trends and Forecasts 2022: Democracy and the Law

13 October 2022 @ 9:30 am – 5:40 pm – PLP’s annual conference is back and in-person, for a day of cutting-edge analysis, insight and opinion from the UK’s leading lawyers and legal thinkers, presented in partnership with Blackstone Chambers and Herbert Smith Freehills. This year’s theme is Democracy and the Law. You can view Martin Rowson’s masterpiece for this year’s event, in full, here. […]

How we do it

Research and policy

Research into automated decision-making and administrative justice: We conduct research into the challenges and opportunities which automated decision-making presents for administrative justice in the UK.
Developing the evidence base for online courts and tribunals: We conduct rigorous, empirical research into how online courts and tribunals are working in practice, particularly for disadvantaged and marginalised groups.
Scrutinising the digitisation of the UK justice system: We scrutinise the UK Government’s programme to digitise the justice system and provide Parliament and policymakers with insights into this dynamic and technical area of policy.
Tracking Automated Government (TAG) Project: We are tracking and analysing examples of automated decision-making, to ensure that they conform to public law principles and operate in the interests of disadvantaged and marginalised groups. This project is modelled on our successful Brexit SIFT Project.

You can access all our research and briefings on public law and technology here.

Training and resources

‘Rise of the Robots: Challenging automated decision-making in government’: PLP is developing training for public lawyers on challenging automated government decisions.

Casework

We are keen to share our expertise and speak to individuals and organisations concerned about artificial intelligence and public law decision making.

Examples of our work

April 2018: Published a research report, The Digitalisation of Tribunals: What we know and what we need to know.
April 2018: Produced submission to the ‘Fit for the future’ consultation, which was cited in the Government’s response.
June 2019: PLP’s Deputy Legal Director Sara Lomri gave oral evidence to the Justice Select Committee’s inquiry into court and tribunal reforms.
October 2019: Hosted our annual conference on judicial review trends and forecasts, focused on public law and technology. Some of the materials from the conference are available here. Some of the conference papers have been published in a special issue of the Judicial Review journal.
April 2020: Hosted an event on the changes to courts and tribunals due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Remote Justice? Access to courts and tribunals during the pandemic. We brought together a mix of expert views and first-hand experiences of these dramatic changes to the justice system.
PLP is host an ongoing series of roundtables with Liberty and the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at Oxford University, to discuss the challenges posed by the growth of the digital state and its impact on decision-making, judicial review, public law and the public sector.
PLP publishes articles and blogs on issues in public law and technology. We reflected on Lord Sales’ 2019 Sir Henry Brooke Lecture on ‘Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence and the Law’. We have written about public law principles and secrecy in the algorithmic state. We have also mapped and analysed current thinking on public law and technology in UK civil society.