OPEHRA - OPErationalising Human Rights in the Design of AI-supported Digital Health

The emergence of the new EU Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act underscores the importance of taking a 'Human Rights by Design' (HRbD) approach when developing AI-based systems. For instance, the AI Act stipulates the use of Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIAs) carried out at the onset of high-risk digital initiatives, e.g. health and social care. However, a significant gap exists between the legal and software engineering worlds, making it challenging to operationalise HRIA and HRbD strategies that go beyond legal compliance and truly support companies embedding human rights in the software engineering process. 

The OPEHRA project aims to investigate engineering strategies to help software organisations operationalise human rights in software design by adapting and enhancing methodologies. Specifically, existing methods for HRIAs, risk assessments, and other threat modelling techniques can be improved and employed at the earlier stages of digital health initiatives and evaluated in practice, ensuring that they can meaningfully inform software practitioners and other stakeholders. 

Project goals:

1 - “Landscape Mapping of Human Rights Engineering Approaches for AI in Digital Health” to provide a holistic engineering view of human rights for AI-supported systems

2 - “Operationalising HRIAs in the Design Process,” leveraging action research case studies with the business partners to assess AI-based digital health solutions rigorously

3 - “Co-Producing Training and Awareness Programmes with Industry,” co-developing training and awareness-raising activities and materials with our business partners through iterative and hands-on workshops.

The project is carried out in cooperation with Mavatar, inTechrity, Pfizer, and the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions.