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The Taxonomy

A shared vocabulary for describing technology.

All categories

Elements 11

What are your rights?

What you can do in relation to this system — how to access, contest, or opt out.

About this category

Rights

What are your rights?

What you can do in relation to this system — how to access, contest, or opt out.

Datachain

Answer
Some systems offer nothing beyond the general law. Answer it when people can access, contest or opt out.
Icon shape
Guardrails: what could go wrong and what you can do about it.

Variables

  • Description of Rights Required

Right to AccessThe right to request and receive information about what personal data a system has collected about you, how this data is being used, and what decisions have been made using this information. This includes the right to obtain a copy of your data in a readable format.
Right to Algorithmic TransparencyThe right to be informed in plain language about how a system works in general — the logic involved, the significance of the processing, and the likely consequences for the people it affects. This is the right to understand the system itself; the right to an explanation of a specific decision made about you is a separate right.
Right to Be ForgottenThe right to have your personal data deleted from a system when the data is no longer needed for its original purpose, when you withdraw consent, or when there is no legitimate interest in continuing to process it. Where technically feasible, this also includes having the system "unlearn" information derived from your data. This is a right of deletion; the right to stop processing without deletion is a separate right.
Right to ContestThe right to challenge a decision a system has made about you — to provide additional information, express your point of view, and have the decision reconsidered based on your input. This is a remedy after a decision has been made; the right to a human review before a decision is acted on is a separate right.
Right to Correct Your DataThe right to have inaccurate or incomplete data that a system holds about you corrected or completed. This is separate from the right to access your data (which is the right to read it) and the right to be forgotten (which is the right to delete it). When the original data is corrected, downstream decisions made from the faulty data should be revisited.
Right to an Explanation of a DecisionThe right to a clear and meaningful explanation of how a system contributed to a specific decision affecting you — what role the system played, the main factors that led to the outcome, and what it means for you. This right covers the decision actually made about you; the right to be informed about how the system works in general is a separate right.
Right to Non-discriminationThe right to be free from discriminatory treatment by a system based on protected characteristics such as race, gender, age, religion, disability, or sexual orientation. Organizations must implement and demonstrate appropriate technical and organizational measures to prevent discriminatory outcomes from their systems.
Right to Stop ProcessingThe right to ask an organization to stop using your personal data, even when the data itself is not deleted. This is separate from the right to be forgotten (which deletes the data) and from the right to purpose limitation (which constrains the original stated purposes). It is the user-invoked stop-now affordance — your data may stay on file, but no further processing should happen against it.
Right to Purpose LimitationThe right that your data is only used for the specific purposes that were stated when it was collected. The organization must declare and document those purposes before collection begins, and is barred from later using your data for new, unrelated purposes without your knowledge or consent. This is an upstream limit on what use is ever allowed; the right to stop processing already underway is a separate right.
Right to a Human ReviewThe right to have a person — not an automated system — make or meaningfully reconsider a decision affecting you. This is a path to a non-automated decision, separate from the right to challenge a decision that has already been made. The reviewing person must have the authority and information to actually change the outcome.
Right to Be InformedThe right to know that a system is in operation before it collects data about you or any decision affecting you is made. This includes being told when data about you is being collected, when you are interacting with an automated system rather than a person, when content is AI-generated, and when biometric or emotion-recognition technology is in use. This is the precondition for every other right in this category — you cannot exercise rights you do not know apply to you.