Artificial Intelligence and the Protection of Fundamental Rights: Challenges to Constitutional Rights in the Era of Automated Decision-Making

Abstract

Artificial intelligence and automated decision-making systems are increasingly used in public administration, policing, employment, education, healthcare, welfare distribution, immigration, financial services, credit assessment, and other fields in which decisions may substantially affect individuals’ rights and opportunities. While these technologies offer significant advantages in efficiency, consistency, prediction, and large-scale data processing, they also create complex constitutional challenges. The central concern is no longer merely whether an automated system functions accurately, but whether its design, data, deployment, and institutional use remain compatible with fundamental rights. This study examines the constitutional implications of artificial intelligence through a comparative legal and human-rights perspective, focusing particularly on equality and non-discrimination, privacy and informational autonomy, human dignity, procedural fairness, the right to reasons, access to an effective remedy, transparency, and meaningful human oversight. It analyses major international and regional regulatory instruments, including the General Data Protection Regulation, the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act, the Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence, UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, and the OECD AI Principles, together with selected judicial developments such as SCHUFA, SyRI, and Bridges. The study argues that existing fundamental rights remain fully applicable in the age of automated governance, but their effective protection requires institutional and procedural adaptation. High-impact automated systems must therefore be governed by legality, proportionality, non-discrimination, data protection, explainability, traceability, human supervision, rights-impact assessment, and effective mechanisms of review. The article concludes that technological efficiency cannot justify the displacement of constitutional responsibility and that ultimate legal accountability must remain attributable to human institutions.