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The BOSCO ruling: government software must be explainable
.ical
2026-06-30 –, Auditorium

In 2025, the Spanish Supreme Court ruled that source code for a piece of software developed for a Ministry (the BOSCO tool) needed to have its source code released. Nowadays laws are being implemented as computer code; and for a democratic society to function as such, the public needs to be able to know both the letter of the law and the source code of the software used to enforce that law.

The BOSCO ruling sets an European precedent for algorithmic transparency and digital sovereignty.

Give indication of resources (video, web pages, papers, etc.) to read in advance, that will help get up to speed on advanced topics.:

https://civio.es/novedades/2025/11/17/this-is-the-landmark-ruling-that-sets-a-new-standard-for-algorithmic-transparency-in-spain/

Assign a number between 1 and 4 indicating the level of technical complexity of your contribution.: 2: some technical/thematic skills required Select at least one general theme that best defines your proposal: Community & governance in FOSS4G Under which license do you make your contribution available? The conference contribution comprises the abstract, the text contribution for the conference proceedings, the presentation materials as well as the video recording and live transmission of the presentation: CC BY-SA
The speaker’s profile picture
Iván Sánchez Ortega

Iván has been a web developer and FLOSS advocate since the early 2000s; then he bought a GPS receiver and got involved in OpenStreetMap and OSGeo.

He’s worked with nautical charts, indoor positioning, USB microcontrollers, LibreOffice, multispectral rasters, all of it with unhealthy amounts of Javascript.

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