# Automated decision-making · Glossary
Decisions made by technological means without meaningful human involvement.
[Glossary](/glossary) · AI governance and risk

# Automated decision-making

     Decisions made by technological means without meaningful human involvement. Data protection law places specific safeguards on solely automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on individuals, such as credit, employment or benefit decisions.

## Why it matters

     Automation can make decisions faster and more consistent, but it concentrates risk: an error in data or logic is repeated at scale. People affected by significant decisions generally have rights to information, to contest the outcome and to obtain human intervention.

     In the UK, the rules on automated decision-making were reformed by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, with changes commencing in stages. Organisations should check the current requirements and design for meaningful human review, which means reviewers with the evidence, time and authority to change the outcome.

## In practice

     For example, a UK consumer lender might automate approvals for clear-cut applications but route declines to a trained underwriter who sees the key factors behind the model’s score, can override it and records their reasoning in the case file.

## Where Rodan fits

     Rodan designs decision systems with explicit review points, explanations and audit trails in [AI and Decision Systems](https://rodan.io/what-we-build/ai-decision-systems) work.

## Related terms

- [Human-in-the-loop (HITL)](/glossary#human-in-the-loop)

- [Explainable AI](/glossary#explainable-ai)

- [Audit trail](/glossary/audit-trail)

- [Data protection impact assessment (DPIA)](/glossary/data-protection-impact-assessment)

- [Algorithmic bias](/glossary#algorithmic-bias)
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