Automated Intrusion, Systemic Discrimination: How Untethered Algorithms Harm Privacy & Civil Rights
Channel: New America
Date: 04/06/2020

Algorithms and other automated tools are increasingly involved in critical decisions such as whether someone should go to jail, get a job, or have access to sufficient levels of financial aid. Often these algorithms result from machine learning systems, and draw correlations based on analyzing large quantities of data that appear to be neutral in content. Concerningly, the data used to train machine learning systems can often reflect historical discrimination, so that the resulting algorithms reinforce biases and result in discriminatory outcomes. Moreover, to run these algorithms, systems often collect significant volumes of personal data, which can be incredibly privacy invasive, and in many cases, the data collected includes proxies for protected classes. The consequences and impacts that such behavior can have on individuals is becoming increasingly clear in education, housing, and criminal justice decisions.

How do we design and audit algorithms to avoid these outcomes? What are the real-world consequences of these practices? Who should be held accountable to protect privacy interests for the unintended discriminatory impacts of these automated systems? What should legislative protections look like? To what extent can, or should, such protections be incorporated into comprehensive consumer privacy legislation?

Join New America’s Open Technology Institute to hear from a panel of experts discussing the intersection of algorithms and privacy.

Keynote:

Rep. Yvette Clarke, @RepYvetteClarke
Vice Chair
House Energy and Commerce Committee

Panel:

Prince Albert, @aprincealbert3
Technology & Telecommunications Fellow, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Daniel Kahn Gillmor
Senior Staff Technologist of ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project; American Civil Liberties Union

Iris Palmer, @Irisonhighered
Senior Advisor for Higher Education and Workforce, New America’s Educational Policy Program

Koustubh “K.J.” Bagchi (moderator), @kjbagchi
Senior Policy Counsel, New America’s Open Technology Institute

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