AlgorithmWatch
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Automating Society Report 2020 - 30 octobre 2020
Life in the automated society : How automated decision-making systems became mainstream, and what to do about it
On a cloudy August day in London, students were angry. They flocked to Parliament Square by the hundreds, in protest – their placards emblazoned with support for unusual allies : their teachers, and an (...)
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Spam filters are efficient and uncontroversial. Until you look at them. - 25 octobre 2020
An experiment reveals that Microsoft Outlook marks messages as spam on the basis of a single word, such as “Nigeria”. Spam filters are largely unaudited and could discriminate unfairly.
In an experiment, AlgorithmWatch sent a few hundred emails to 10 email inboxes at Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, GMX and LaPoste (the last (...)
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Automated discrimination : Facebook uses gross stereotypes to optimize ad delivery - 18 octobre 2020
An experiment by AlgorithmWatch shows that online platforms optimize ad delivery in discriminatory ways. Advertisers who use them could be breaking the law.
Online platforms are well known for the refinement of their advertisement engines, which let advertisers address very specific audiences. Facebook lets you (...)
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In Italy, an appetite for face recognition in football stadiums - 22 septembre 2020
Right before the pandemic, the government and top sports authorities were planning a massive deployment of face recognition and sound surveillance technologies in all Italian football stadiums. The reason ? To help fight racism.
At the beginning of 2020, just as the whole world was grappling with increasing (...)
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Suzhou introduced a new social scoring system, but it was too Orwellian, even for China - 21 septembre 2020
A city of 10 million in eastern China upgraded its Covid-tracking app to introduce a new “civility” score. It had to backtrack after a public outcry.
Suzhou is a city with a population of 10 million, located 100 km west of Shanghai. It is well known for its classic Chinese gardens and, since last week, one of the (...)
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Female historians and male nurses do not exist, Google Translate tells its European users - 20 septembre 2020
An experiment shows that Google Translate systematically changes the gender of translations when they do not fit with stereotypes. It is all because of English, Google says.
If you were to read a story about male and female historians translated by Google, you might be forgiven for overlooking the females in the (...)
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ADM Systems in the COVID-19 Pandemic : A European Perspective - 1er septembre 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred the deployment of a plethora of automated decision-making (ADM) systems all over Europe. High hopes have been placed by both local administrations and national governments in applications and devices aimed at containing the outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (...)
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Europe wants to be a role model for technological responses to COVID-19. But it’s complicated. - 1er septembre 2020
Launch of our new report on ’Automated Decision-Making Systems in the COVID-19 Pandemic’…
The ongoing pandemic has spurred the deployment of a plethora of automated decision-making (ADM) systems all over Europe. In a special issue of their Automating Society Report 2020, AlgorithmWatch and Bertelsmann Stiftung (...)
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Austria’s employment agency rolls out discriminatory algorithm, sees no problem - 28 août 2020
AMS, Austria’s employment agency, is about to roll out a sorting algorithm that gives lower scores to women and to the disabled. It is very likely illegal under current anti-discrimination law.
The Austrian employment agency, known by its German acronym AMS, is a state-owned company in charge of helping job (...)
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Pre-crime at the tax office : How Poland automated the fight against VAT fraud. - 27 août 2020
In their fight against fraud, Polish tax authorities use STIR, an algorithm sifting through the data of millions of entrepreneurs. The government claims success, but dozens of companies have been hit, some say wrongly.
“We have broken the group of VAT fraudsters”, “We have detected the artificial vegetable oil (...)
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Under the Twitter streetlight : How data scarcity distorts research - 16 août 2020
As part of our #LeftOnRead campaign, several researchers testified to the reluctance of online platforms to provide useful data. Many resort to studying Twitter, which is more accommodating than most.
Tiziano Bonini, an associate professor at the University of Siena, began an ethnographic investigation of online (...)
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Downgraded A-level students urged to join possible legal action - 14 août 2020
Legal letter sent to Ofqual and DfE calls for changes to ‘unfair’ grading algorithm
Students affected by the mass downgrading of A-level results in England have been urged to join a possible legal action against the Department for Education and the exams regulator.
Nearly 40% of A-level assessments by teachers (...)
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Spain’s largest bus terminal deployed live face recognition four years ago, but few noticed - 14 août 2020
Madrid South Station’s face recognition system automatically matches every visitor’s face against a database of suspects, and shares information with the Spanish police.
Around 20 million travellers transited last year through Madrid’s South bus terminal, known as Méndez Álvaro Station to locals. Those 20 million (...)
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This man had his credit score changed from C to A+ after a few emails - 14 août 2020
A 52-year-old man in Hanover, Germany, discovered that he’d been erroneously scored by a credit bureau. His story reveals the gaps in credit score regulation.
In October 2019, Mark Wetzler searched for a new electricity provider on a comparison website. He found one, asked for contract and didn’t think more about (...)
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Slovenian police acquires automated tools first, legalizes them later - 5 août 2020
The Slovenian police legalized its use of face recognition 5 years after it started to use it. Despite formal safeguards, no institution can restrain the Interior ministry.
When Slovenian journalists or activists ask officials whether the police, the secret service, and the army are using any technological tools (...)
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Swiss police automated crime predictions but has little to show for it - 5 août 2020
A review of 3 automated systems in use by the Swiss police and judiciary reveals serious issues. Real-world effects are impossible to assess due to a lack of transparency.
The Swiss police and justice authorities use, by one count, over 20 different automated systems to estimate or predict inappropriate behavior. (...)
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Werkwijze Belastingdienst in strijd met de wet en discriminerend - 5 août 2020
Afdeling Toeslagen van de Belastingdienst had de (dubbele) nationaliteit van aanvragers van kinderopvangtoeslag niet zo mogen verwerken als jarenlang gebeurde. Deze verwerkingen waren onrechtmatig, discriminerend en daarmee onbehoorlijk – zware overtredingen van de privacywet, de Algemene verordening (...)
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Undress or fail : Instagram’s algorithm strong-arms users into showing skin - 21 juillet 2020
An exclusive investigation reveals that Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women, shaping the behavior of content creators and the worldview of 140 millions Europeans in what remains a blind spot of EU regulations.
Sarah is a food entrepreneur in a large European city (the name was changed). (...)
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Hey researchers ! Have you been ‘left on read’ by platforms ? Share your stories ! - 11 juillet 2020
In our discussions with researchers from civil society and academia, we learned about the tremendous barriers many of you face when conducting public interest research using platform data. You told us about inaccurate or incomplete ad archives, arbitrary or unpredictable request/authorization processes, and the (...)
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Austria’s employment agency rolls out discriminatory algorithm, sees no problem - 4 juillet 2020
AMS, Austria’s employment agency, is about to roll out a sorting algorithm that gives lower scores to women and to the disabled. It is very likely illegal under current anti-discrimination law.
The Austrian employment agency, known by its German acronym AMS, is a state-owned company in charge of helping job (...)
