Senators Gary Peters and James Lankford have introduced the Transparent Automated Governance (TAG) Act, a bipartisan bill aimed at increasing transparency around the federal government’s use of AI, according to an October 9 Nextgov/FCW report.

The legislation would require federal agencies to notify individuals when they are interacting with certain AI or other automated systems, or when an AI‑assisted process makes a critical decision about them.

For adverse critical decisions, agencies would establish a redress process that includes human review. 

It would also direct the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to issue guidance on transparency practices and require agencies to establish redress processes, including human review, for people affected by adverse critical decisions.

AI Inventories Become Governance Infrastructure

For chief data officers (CDOs), the proposal highlights the need to know where AI is used and which decisions it influences.

Agencies would need reliable records of AI systems, their uses, the data involved and the decisions they support. That links AI governance directly to the quality of technology and data inventories.

The bill would also make traceability more important. Agencies would need enough information about an AI-assisted decision to identify when human review is required and provide meaningful redress.

That makes AI governance a data-management as well as a policy issue.