Administrative and legal framework for ensuring ethical standards of artificial intelligence in e-governance at the local level

The article examines the administrative and legal foundations for ensuring ethical standards of artificial intelligence (AI) in local e-governance. Formal-legal, comparative-legal, and systematic-structural research methods were applied. The study analyzed the provisions of EU Regulation 2024/1689 (AI Act), the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, and the OECD AI Principles. The current state of administrative and legal regulation of AI in Ukraine was examined, including the Concept for the Development of Artificial Intelligence (2020). International experience of integrating AI into municipal governance was evaluated, with the identification of key threats including algorithmic bias, lack of transparency, and privacy risks. The necessity for targeted administrative and legal mechanisms to ensure ethical AI standards at the local level of e-governance was substantiated. Three main models of AI legal regulation were considered: the European model (strict regulation through the AI Act), the OECD model (soft law through recommendations), and the UNESCO framework (ethical principles). Particular attention was paid to analyzing legal gaps in Ukrainian legislation regarding automated decision-making by local self-government bodies. It was established that the Law «On Administrative Services» and the Law «On Protection of Personal Data» contain no provisions regarding the use of algorithmic systems in public administration. The article proposes amendments to the Law of Ukraine «On Administrative Services» introducing norms that obligate authorities to inform citizens about AI-based decisions and guarantee the right to choose human-provided services as an alternative. Recommendations were formulated for adopting a specialized Law «On Artificial Intelligence» with a dedicated chapter on local self-government and a risk-based classification system for AI applications in municipal governance. The methodological basis of the research comprises formal-legal method (for analysis of EU and Ukrainian regulatory acts), comparative-legal method (for comparing approaches to AI regulation across jurisdictions), and systematic-structural method (for identifying interconnections between elements of AI legal regulation). The practical significance of the study lies in formulating specific proposals for improving domestic legislation on AI use by local self-government bodies.