Definition
The property, as the design and law literature names it, that the person a decision is about can challenge it and the challenge can change the outcome. On this site the right is standing, the act is a challenge, and what the person receives when a challenge is upheld is the remedy. The word contestability is kept for engaging that literature and for STD-02.
It has four parts and needs all four: standing, meaning a named party may raise the challenge; a channel that receives it; an obliged responder who must answer on a clock against a stated standard; and a state change the challenge is capable of producing. Three of the four is a complaints process. The apparatus that supplies them is a standing mechanism, and the fourth part is what gives a challenge procedural force rather than a reply.
What is AI contestability? — the explainer, with a worked example
Tests that show it is in place
- Challenges route to reviewers with authority to overturn outcomes.
- Appeal passage rate and response time are tracked and used to improve decisions.
- Challenge outcomes are recorded as overturns, restorations, or policy changes, never only as “review completed.”
- An appeal passage rate below 5% for 30 days triggers a redesign review.
- The share of challenges that produce a decision artifact is tracked and published.
If this is present, check for
If this is missing, expect