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Australian Citizenship Act 2007 - s 48
These are laws that authorise a computer program to make a decision. This is not a claim that any decision was wrong, that any agency currently automates anything, or how any agency uses the power if it does. Authorisation is not use.
Provision text
48 Computerised decision-making
Computer-based decisions
(1) The Minister may, by writing, arrange for the use, under the
Minister’s control, of computer programs for any purposes for
which the Minister may, or must, under this Act or the regulations:
(a) make a decision; or
(b) exercise any power or comply with any obligation; or
(c) do anything else related to making a decision or exercising a
power or complying with an obligation.
(2) The Minister is taken to have:
(a) made a decision; or
(b) exercised a power or complied with an obligation; or
(c) done something else related to the making of a decision or
the exercise of a power or the compliance with an obligation;
that was made, exercised, complied with or done by the operation
of a computer program under such an arrangement.
Minister may substitute his or her own decision
(3) The Minister may substitute a decision (the substituted decision)
for a decision (the initial decision) made by the operation of a
computer program under such an arrangement if:
(a) a notice under section 49 relates to the computer program and
to the initial decision; and
(b) the notice states that the computer program was not
functioning correctly; and
(c) the substituted decision could have been made under the
same provision of this Act or the regulations as the initial
decision; and
(d) the substituted decision is more favourable to the applicant.
(4) The Minister does not have a duty to consider whether to exercise
the power under subsection (3) in respect of any decision, whether
he or she is requested to do so by the applicant or by any other
person, or in any other circumstances.
(5) Subsection (3) has effect despite any law of the Commonwealth, or
any rule of common law, to the contrary effect.
Exceptions
(5A) This section does not apply in relation to anything done under
Subdivision C of Division 3 of Part 2 (citizenship cessation).
Arrangement not a legislative instrument
(6) An arrangement under subsection (1) is not a legislative
instrument.
Details
Disclosure surface: Surface recorded (unverified) - AI transparency statement
This records only whether an agency-published ADM transparency surface was found and recorded; it is not a claim about how, or whether, the agency uses the statutory power above.
Sourced from the Federal Register of Legislation at 18 July 2026. For the latest information... go to legislation.gov.au Licence: CC BY 4.0 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International). This is an archived copy and is not an authorised version of the legislation (Legislation Act 2003 Part 3).