This repository contains all the work on the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard by the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) and the Responsible Technology Adoption Unit (formerly the CDEI) .
The ATRS was developed to help public sector organisations provide clear information about the algorithmic tools they use in decision-making processes that affect members of the public, and explain why they’re using them. It enables public bodies to proactively publish this information in a standardised way on gov.uk and make it accessible to members of the public. The ATRS is a reporting standard that introduces a standardised way of presenting and communicating predominantly qualitative information about how technologies are being used in decision processes.
The first version (v1.1) of the ATRS was published on gov.uk in November 2021. After an extensive phase of piloting the Standard with public sector teams and collecting feedback, we have updated the Standard and developed accompanying guidance that is intended to help teams fill out transparency reports for their tools. The second and version of the Standard was published on gov.uk and GitHub in January 2023. Over the following year, we transferred the Standard template onto spreadsheet based applications to improve functionality, user-experience and data management processes. The third and current version of the Standard (v3.0) is available for donwload at gov.uk.
Additionally, this repository contains a change log that summarises the differences between v2.1 and v3.0 of the Standard, and a PDF of the ATRS guidance also published online.