County of Santa Cruz Artificial Intelligence Appropriate Use Policy

• Authority: Santa Cruz County, CA
• Parent authority: Local governments
• Jurisdiction: United States
• Collections: U.S. state and local documents
• Most recent activity: Enacted
• Most recent activity date: 2023-09-19

Risk subdomain coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the risk subdomain are explicitly described.

• Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation
• Compromise of privacy
• False or misleading information
• Overreliance and unsafe use
• Lack of transparency or interpretability

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the risk subdomain are described.

• Unequal performance across groups
• AI system security vulnerabilities
• Cyberattacks, weapon development or use
• Loss of human agency and autonomy
• Lack of capability or robustness

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document has good coverage of approximately 6-8 subdomains, with strong focus on privacy compromise (2.1), security vulnerabilities (2.2), false information (3.1), unfair discrimination (1.1), overreliance (5.1), and lack of transparency (7.4). Coverage is concentrated in privacy/security, misinformation, discrimination, and human-computer interaction domains.

Sector coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the sector are explicitly described.

• Public Administration (excl. National Security)

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the sector are described.

• Health Care & Social Assistance

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

This is an internal policy governing AI use within County of Santa Cruz government operations. The primary sector governed is Public Administration excluding National Security, as it applies to county government employees across various departments and functions.

Legislative Status

Other

Legislative Status Summary

This is an internal corporate policy document establishing appropriate use guidelines for County of Santa Cruz employees. It lacks formal legislative authority, enforcement mechanisms with legal penalties, and binding legal obligations characteristic of hard law.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: County of Santa Cruz; Information Services Department
• Summary: The County of Santa Cruz is the issuing authority for this policy, as indicated by the document title and throughout the text. The Information Services Department appears to have a role in policy implementation and tool approval.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_User, AI_Deployer
• Entities: County of Santa Cruz employees; contractors; third-party individuals or entities
• Summary: The policy explicitly applies to all County employees, contractors, and third-party entities who have access to or use generative AI technologies on behalf of the organization. These actors are both users and deployers of AI tools in their work.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Information Services Department (ISD); supervisors; departments
• Summary: The Information Services Department has authority to approve AI tools and receive reports of concerns. Supervisors and departments have enforcement roles through monitoring and establishing additional rules.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: County of Santa Cruz; Information Services Department
• Summary: The County and ISD are responsible for ongoing monitoring and evaluation of AI products to ensure compliance with security and risk management criteria. The policy also establishes regular review processes.

AI Lifecycle Stages

Lifecycle stages covered by the documents, as defined in the OECD Framework for the Classification of AI Systems

• Build and Use Model
• Verify and Validate
• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document primarily focuses on the Deploy and Operate and Monitor lifecycle stages, with some coverage of Build and Use Model through guidance on tool selection and usage practices. It does not substantially address planning, data collection, or verification/validation stages.

Technical Scope

Terms relating to technical scope that are mentioned or implicitly referenced in the document

• AI Systems
• Generative AI

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly mentions AI tools and generative AI throughout. It specifically focuses on generative AI tools and systems but does not mention frontier AI, general purpose AI, task-specific AI, foundation models, predictive AI, open-weight models, or compute thresholds.