Today, computer systems make decisions about important individual rights—they terminate Medicaid benefits, decide who is not allowed to fly commercial airlines, and mislabel individuals as dead-beat parents. Last century’s due process norms, however, are ill-suited to protect individuals from arbitrary agency action. At the same time, automation impairs participatory rulemaking, the traditional stand-in for individualized due process. My piece develops a new model of procedural regularity and policy-making that can operate when pivotal government decisions are made by automated systems and the programmers who design them.
About Danielle
Danielle Citron is an Assistant Professor of Law, originally joining the faculty as a Visiting Assistant Professor in 2004. She teaches Civil Procedure, Information Privacy Law, LAWR I, and Appellate Advocacy. She was voted the “Best Teacher of the Year” by the University of Maryland law school students in 2005.
Professor Citron’s scholarly interests include information technology’s transformative effect on law and legal theory. Her article, “Minimum Contacts in a Borderless World: Voice over Internet Protocol and the Coming Implosion of Personal Jurisdiction Theory,” appeared in the U.C. Davis Law Review in 2006. Her article, “Reservoirs of Danger: The Evolution of Public and Private Law at the Dawn of the Information Age,” was published by the Southern California Law Review in 2007. Her most recent work includes “Technological Due Process,” which will appear in the Washington University Law Review and “Open Code Governance,” which will be published by the University of Chicago Legal Forum.