Adopting an AI charter in public bodies

What the AI charter for public bodies contains

• Purpose, persons concerned and scope, from civil servants to service providers working on the systems.
• Prohibited data: professional discretion, draft decisions, files under examination, unpublished public procurement documents.
• Excluded uses, including any decision with legal effects based solely on automated processing of the profile of a person.
• Three levels of human verification, from proofreading to validation by an authorised person.
• Documents produced with AI, kept as official documents and subject to access to information, within the limits of Law No. 31-13.
• Finally, information systems security, incident reporting under Law No. 05-20 and the specifications for an AI service.

When to adopt the charter

The charter is adopted as soon as staff use AI tools, whether provided by the body or available to the public. It is used in particular before acquiring an AI service, whose specifications then set the data regime, reversibility and incident notification. Moreover, it is reviewed at least once a year and at each significant change of tool or regulation. It thus concerns decision-makers, the AI officer and staff.

Instructions for use

First, the body appoints the AI officer and the decision-maker, then completes the items in square brackets. Next, the officer draws up the list of authorised tools, which are also entered in the information systems inventory. The competent authority then adopts the AI charter for public bodies and brings it to the attention of each user. Finally, the officer keeps the register of uses and reports to the decision-maker at least once a year.

Expected outcome

The body has a charter adopted by the competent authority and known to each user. AI uses are thus aligned with the statutory obligations of staff, information systems security and public procurement.

Key facts

Limitations

The template applies without prejudice to the statutory obligations of staff. Nor does it replace the security policy or the public procurement rules of each body. Moreover, references to legal texts must be checked against the wording in force on the date of use. The firm provides no representation before the courts.

Further reading: Information Systems & Digital Transformation; Law No. 09-08 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data.