France's Public-Algorithm Transparency Law — "A Dead Letter Since 2016", per the Ombudsman

Since 2016, France's Digital Republic Act (Article L. 312-1-3 of the Code des relations entre le public et l'administration) has required public bodies of a certain size to publish online the rules governing the algorithms they use to make individual decisions. In a report published on 13 November 2024, the Défenseure des droits (France's independent Ombudsman) concluded that the obligation "has remained a dead letter since 2016", naming only three bodies known to comply: the national employment agency France Travail, and the departmental councils of Ille-et-Vilaine and Val-d'Oise.
The Ombudsman's report found that even where administrations do publish information, it is frequently incomplete or hard to locate, and recommended that the government introduce financial penalties for non-compliance and publish a public list of which administrations do and do not comply — neither of which existed as of the report's publication.
In the absence of active enforcement, three independent researchers — sociologist Camille Girard-Chanudet, designer Estelle Hary, and AI/human-rights researcher Soizic Pénicaud — launched the Observatoire des algorithmes publics (ODAP) in November 2024 to compile, outside government channels, an inventory of the algorithms central administrations and state agencies actually use. As of its launch, ODAP explicitly excluded local authorities and hospitals for lack of accessible source data.
This practice is included as a cautionary, evidence-based case rather than a success story: it documents, with an official Ombudsman finding, what happens when an algorithm-transparency mandate carries no enforcement mechanism — and shows civil-society researchers stepping in to do the disclosure work the law itself has not produced in eight years.

Read the full analysis: https://www.defenseurdesdroits.fr/algorithmes-intelligence-artificielle-et-services-publics-2024