This paper discusses the importance of ethical alignment in AI systems, particularly those designed with citizen end users in mind. It explores the intersection of responsible AI, socio-technical systems, and citizen-centric design, proposing that addressing the ethical aspect of decisions in citizen-centric AI systems enhances trust and acceptance of AI technologies. We focus on four key areas: (1) the formal specification of ethical principles, (2) processes to extract and elicit individual users’ ethical preferences, (3) aggregating these ethical preferences for a collective, and (4) mechanisms to ensure that the behaviour of AI systems aligns with the collective ethical preferences. We put forward a research roadmap by identifying challenges in these areas and highlighting solution concepts with the potential to address them.