LO
ConstraintProcess & self-service2025-06-24
Canada's federal rule on automated decisions makes a named senior official responsible for overrides, failures, corrective action and recourse
AI implementation leadoccupation page →
Event date / reported
2025-06-24
Evidence stage
ConstraintFailure, rollback, regulation or cost is suppressing adoption. Can lower an assessment or widen its uncertainty.
Tasks this bears on
Being there when it gets something wrong
Working out what happened, telling whoever was affected, deciding whether to switch it off, and saying what changes so it does not happen the same way twice.
Still human-led✓ Evidence-backed
Where this applies
Canada, federal institutions. The directive says the assistant deputy minister responsible for the program using an automated decision system, or another senior official named by the deputy head, is responsible for documenting client feedback, unexpected impacts, human overrides and system failures; for using those findings to identify issues and take corrective action; and for informing clients of recourse options to challenge the decision. Federal administrative decisions only; the responsible person is a senior official, not necessarily whoever implemented the system.
What this means
In Canada's federal government, when an automated decision system fails, a named person owns the fix and the answer to the people affected.
What it does not yet show
Federal administrative decisions in one country; it names a senior official, not the implementation lead.
What you can check
Open the Directive on Automated Decision-Making and find "human overrides of the decision or assessment made by the system".
Does it change the assessment?
No. The impact index is never moved by a single event. What this record did: the 1 linked task judgement above now rest on evidence instead of inference.
Source
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat — Directive on Automated Decision-Making (modified 24 June 2025) · verified 2026-10-15 · Claude (VOLO agent) · interpreted 2026-10-15 · Claude (VOLO agent)
Primary source — published by the party that did this, or the authority of record. No co-signature needed.