The Technology, Governance and Intellectual Property Research Group addresses the law and ethics of AI in social care
The “Law and Ethics of AI in Social Care” conference was convened by the Technology, Governance and Intellectual Property Research Group (TGIPRG) on 28 October 2026.
The conference, coordinated by Dr Kinfe Yilma, Dr César J Ramírez-Montes and Dr Andrea Zappalaglio, brought together experts from different disciplines and backgrounds to explore the legal and ethical implications of the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in enhancing the provision of social care.
Social care is one sector where AI tools are increasingly being deployed to improve efficiency in providing public services and detect fraudulent practices in many jurisdictions. While these tools have been in use in some way in the past decade, recent advances in AI are poised to further automate decision-making processes in an unprecedented manner.
Yet the use of automated decision-making tools such as AI in social care raises serious concerns. Experience in other jurisdictions reveals that such tools risk perpetuating bias, discrimination and undermine fundamental rights such as the right to privacy, equality and fair trial. Despite such concerns, the use of these tools appears to be growing.
The conference considered how automated decision-making in social care and welfare interacts with different constitutional and regulatory frameworks across jurisdictions alongside comparative insights from other European jurisdictions.
The keynote was delivered by Professor Elena Díaz Galán who is the current United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights. Professor Galán’s keynote explored the human rights implications of digitalising the provision of social care around the world. Drawing upon her mandate’s pathbreaking work on the digital welfare state, the talk underlined the obligations of states to ground the deployment of digital tools in social care settings in global human rights standards.
The conference featured two panels where researchers and policy practitioners from across the country presented papers on issues at the intersections of technology, ethics, law and social care.
It was a national and international forum where scholars and policy practitioners shared their research findings and policy insights to a diverse audience. The conference was also an opportunity to broach new avenues of collaboration among speakers and participants on common areas of interest in the fields of AI, social care and law. There is a plan to publish papers presented at the workshop as a special issue in the International Review of Law, Computers and Technology, a highly regarded journal edited by TGIPRG’s Professor Subhajit Basu.
Highlighting the significance of the conference, Dr César J Ramírez-Montes, who coordinates TGIPRG, said:
By bringing together academics and policy practitioners as well as a UN expert, the conference plays a key role in advancing the debate on the use of AI systems in social care settings. That puts TGIPRG at the forefront of the academic and policy debate on the topic at the national and global levels.
Further information
The conference was funded by the Small Projects and Events Funds of the Society of Legal Scholars.
