On the internet, no one knows you're a chatbot. 

Driven by artificial intelligence, chatbots are being used to automate online support, dialogue with customers in-app, collect customer feedback, book appointments, sell goods, make recommendations, sell tickets, recruit job candidates, deliver food, analyze documents, and more - like determine someone's immigration eligibility. 

We lack clear guardrails for customer service chatbots. They are computer programs that currently have weak accountabilities to citizens. For instance, they don't need to disclose that they are a digital tool and can pretend to be human, and their programs are under no obligation to disclose what decisions they made or why.  

Chatbots are increasingly part of people's everyday internet experience, whether they know it or not. The global chatbot market is expected to reach $1.23B by 2025 with a compounding annual growth rate of 24.3%, and Covid-19 has been an accelerator for chatbot tech. It's time to meet this market growth with modest guidelines that protect people. 

Signing this petition indicates your support for the Government of Ontario to engage in a policy process to consider a policy framework for consumer chatbots to achieve guidelines like: 

• Chatbots should be transparent; 
• Chatbots should be able to explain decisions to the consumer; 
• Firms that use them should work to ensure that decisions are fair.