Legal Standing in Algorithmic Harm Cases. Collective Actions in Litigating Risk Models Across E-Government States

The paper demonstrates the cycle of access to justice in algorithmic harm cases. It analyses harm in deploying risk models in social security domains by two e-governments and compares legal standing provisions therein. Case studies have been selected from the domestic legal systems of Australia and the Netherlands. The paper concludes that as long as domestic judicial review mechanisms require demonstrating sufficient interest in the case, there are limited possibilities, if any, for the individual victims to claim algorithmic harm directly and seek access to justice. It is due to the individualistic nature of legal standing provisions vis-à-vis collective deployment of algorithmic decision-making processes. Conversely, algorithmic models can be addressed when public interest litigation is in place. However, this solution would not address an individual harm caused by the risk models but rather aim at removing the risk model from decision-making processes. Therefore, neither solution can satisfy all interests that various applicants, especially the vulnerable ones, may have in litigation.