Commissioners welcome Ombudsman's IAT probe

The Human Rights and Age Discrimination Commissioners have welcomed the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s decision to investigate the use of the Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT) in aged care.

The IAT is a national digital system designed to make decisions about an older person’s needs and their eligibility for home-based government-subsidised aged care services, as part of the government’s Support at Home program. But recent public reporting has highlighted concerns about how the IAT operates in practice. These include whether human reviewers are being prohibited from overriding automated decisions, and whether review pathways are accessible and effective when people’s circumstances change or errors are detected.

In practice, the IAT can shape decisions about what services a person can access, and how costs are shared between them and the government.

Independent scrutiny is critical where automated or algorithm-based systems are used in public administration in ways that shape access to services and have financial consequences. For older people, aged care assessments often determine both the level of support received and the costs they must meet, frequently at times of heightened vulnerability.

Experience across Australia’s public systems shows that risks arise when automated tools are used to make significant decisions, particularly where they materially shape outcomes, or are difficult to explain or navigate. Even where tools do not explicitly take age or other protected attributes into account, the use of data patterns and correlations can produce unequal or unfair outcomes that are difficult for people to identify or challenge.

The Human Rights Commission has consistently emphasised that AI-informed decision-making in government must operate within clear legal authority and be supported by effective human oversight, transparency and review. These principles are directly relevant to digital tools used in aged care, where decisions have enduring consequences for people’s dignity and wellbeing.

Image credit: iStock.com/Milan Markovic