Transparency: Spanish Supreme Court orders the release of source code (civio.es)

Spain’s Supreme Court has ordered the government to disclose the source code of BOSCO, the automated application that decides who receives social vouchers, siding with transparency NGO Civio after a seven-year legal battle. The ruling overturns earlier judgments that accepted blanket national-security and intellectual-property defenses, declaring that access to how public-administration algorithms work is a constitutional democratic right and that secrecy cannot be automatic. The court emphasized that BOSCO issues automatic, non-explanatory decisions with a “multiplier effect” (errors can deny entitlements to many people), so public scrutiny has singular relevance. Technically and legally, the judgment requires case-by-case risk weighing rather than categorical denials, affirms the separation of program code from personal data, and recognizes that openness can strengthen security (through design safeguards and independent audits). It cites European law and ECHR case law and creates binding jurisprudence: any algorithm used by public authorities that affects citizens may require source-code access, explainability, and documentation. For the AI/ML community this sets a strong precedent for procurement, governance and auditability—expect increased demands for explainability, security-by-design, reproducible evaluations, and legal obligations for transparent automated decision systems in public services.