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Good practice Imported

Algoritmos Éticos — Chile's Standard Ethical Requirements for Public-Sector AI Procurement

Chile · Santiago · See the Chile profile · See the Santiago profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 83% 40/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Chile's ChileCompra and GobLab UAI built 'Algoritmos Eticos', publishing Latin America's first standard AI bidding terms (Jan 2023) requiring transparency and non-discrimination clauses. Two pilots followed, but reviewers found many vendors still unfamiliar with the rules.

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
ChileCompra (Dirección de Compras y Contratación Pública) with GobLab UAI (Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez)
Period
2020–present (second phase runs through 2025)
Keywords
AI governance, public procurement, digital government, responsible AI

Context

Chile's public procurement agency ChileCompra, together with the GobLab public-innovation lab at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, the Ministry of Science and BID Lab, launched the 'Algoritmos Éticos' project in December 2020 to embed ethical safeguards into public purchases of AI and data-science services.

Objectives

The initiative set out to require transparency, privacy, non-discrimination and explainability commitments from vendors bidding on AI and data-science contracts.

Activities

In January 2023 the project published Standard Bidding Terms for AI procurement, described as the first of their kind in Latin America. Two pilots followed: one with the National Health Fund on fraud oversight and one with the Public Defender's Office on legal-service quality. A second phase funded by ANID runs from mid-2023 through 2025, with ChileCompra on the steering committee.

Conclusions

An Open Contracting Partnership review found that vendor market readiness lagged, with even large companies unfamiliar with the ethical AI requirements, prompting ChileCompra to invest in supplier training; the initiative remains a governance and procurement-standards framework without yet published fraud-detection or efficiency outcomes.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
ChileCompra, GobLab UAI (Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez), Ministry of Science, BID Lab

Conditions for success

  • Published Standard Bidding Terms with explicit transparency, privacy, non-discrimination and explainability clauses
  • Multi-institution steering committee for the second phase
  • Supplier training to raise vendor familiarity with ethical AI requirements

Common failure modes

  • Vendor market readiness lagged, with even large companies unfamiliar with the requirements
  • No fraud-detection or efficiency outcome metrics published for either pilot

Where it fits

Governance type
national procurement agency with academic public-innovation lab partnership
Scale
national (extending to additional agencies)
Income level
high

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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