Governments shouldn’t rely on AI to decide who gets a social grant: inside a South African court case

South Africa introduced a digital social assistance programme in 2020 to identify who was eligible for its Social Relief of Distress grant.

The country’s High Court later found that the automated vetting system it relied on was unconstitutional and invalid.

The case was brought by the Institute for Economic Justice , a South African think tank, and #PayTheGrants , a civil society movement that advocates for economic justice.

The government appealed the decision and the case will be heard by the Supreme Court of Appeal.

Legal scholar Mark Gaffley explains the significance of the ruling.

How does the system work and why’s there a court case about it? The South African Social Security Agency launched the Social Relief of Distress grant in May 2020.

It was intended to provide temporary relief for the most destitute – that is almost one-third of South Africans.

To qualify for the R370-a-month (US$23) grant ( almost 50% less than the food poverty line ), recipients had to receive no income or any other grant.

Government estimated that the target group was approximately 18.3 million people .

Though the grant was digital-first from the start, new regulations passed in April 2022 shifted its administration from under the Disaster Management Act to the Social Assistance Act.

These regulations limited applications to online-only and in many cases treated verdicts given by automated decision-making systems as definitive.

This stringent application process made the grant the first large-scale fully digital social grant programme of its kind in the country.

It worked by verifying applicants’ income through automated bank account checks and government database records.

The updated digital application process led to a drastic reduction of successful applicants.