story

How Dutch activists got an invasive fraud detection algorithm banned

The Dutch government has been using SyRI, a secret algorithm, to detect possible social welfare fraud. Civil rights activists have taken the matter to court and managed to get public organizations to…

joint statement

States use of digital surveillance technologies to fight pandemic must respect human rights

Together with more than 100 civil society groups AlgorithmWatch signed a joint statement setting out conditions that must be met before the use of surveillance technology to fight pandemic (PDF). The…

story

In Flanders, an algorithm attempts to make school choice fairer

In Belgium, some schools don’t have enough capacity for all students that want to go there. In the Flemish part of the country, the government introduced an algorithm to assign places in schools, in t…

position

Germany’s new media treaty demands that platforms explain algorithms and stop discriminating. Can it deliver?

Facebook can’t decide if it’s a tech company, a media company, a telecoms company, or something else entirely. Ahead of talks with European regulators, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it’s something in betwe…

story

Central authorities slow to react as Sweden’s cities embrace automation of welfare management

By Katarina Lind and Leo Wallentin of Journalism++. Part of this story is available in Swedish at Dagens Samhälle under the title Trelleborgs biståndsrobot spred känsliga uppgifter. Trelleborg is Swed…

data donation

Help us unveil the secrets of Instagram’s algorithm

Firefox users can install an add-on to help us monitor Instagram's newsfeed algorithm.

EU Commission publishes white paper on AI regulation 20 days before schedule, forgets regulation

In a set of documents published today, the European Commission unveiled its strategy for “Europe's digital future”. Despite some promising regulatory proposals, the Berlaymont’s program for automated…

story

Between care and control: 200 years of health data in France

The French “Health Data Hub” will soon offer health data on all French citizens to AI startups that request it. It is the latest step in a project to centralize health information that began 200 years…

interview

“Lawmakers should provide rule-based descriptions of what it means not to be racist”

Cathy O’Neil is a mathematician and the author of several books on data science, including Weapons of Math Destruction, which looked at the impact of algorithms on society. In an e-mail interview, she…