After Facebook forced AlgorithmWatch to shutter our Instagram monitoring project, MEP Patrick Breyer submitted a written question to the European Commission asking how to protect public interest research from being oppressed by large tech platforms. Now, the Commission has responded.
Stiftung Mercator will support AlgorithmWatch over the next three years to strengthen our work seeking to influence digital policies and algorithmic governance in the public interest.
Read moreA climate catastrophe in Germany and the revelations of the Facebook Files had one thing in common: the humans in the loop failed to take the right decisions. 2021 was not the year algorithms were reined in, but 2022 might be.
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AlgorithmWatch welcomes that UNESCO’s 193 Member States have adopted the Recommendation on Ethics of Artificial Intelligence – the first truly global framework on AI.
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AlgorithmWatch welcomes Anna Kraher, Monica Phương Thúy Nguyễn, John Albert and Josephine Hüetlin to the team.
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Writing is your passion? Do you feel like working in a young and influential NGO? And you want to contribute your skills and experience to one of the most important and exciting social issues of our time? Our team in Berlin is looking forward to your application!
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AlgorithmWatch is an advocacy organization that also carries out research and investigations to shed light on automated systems. We always welcome contributions from outside journalists. Here's what you need to know before you freelance for AlgorithmWatch.
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AlgorithmWatch is looking for a dedicated technical campaigner to join our team in Berlin. Fluent German and proficient English skills are required.
Read moreFacebook forced us to shut down our Instagram monitoring project. We have written an open letter to European Union lawmakers asking them to use the Digital Services Act (DSA) to defend public interest research about how platforms influence our public sphere. It has been signed by 36 organizations and 6.126 individuals.
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AlgorithmWatch is looking for a dedicated and experienced Senior Policy and Advocacy Advisor to join our team in Berlin. Fluency in English is required, in German a plus.
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Which videos does YouTube's recommender system suggest to users during the german election campaign? The new data donation platform “Dataskop” developed by AlgorithmWatch is helping researchers and journalists investigate how users' watch histories influence the platform’s recommendations and search results. From 15 July until 25 August, users can donate their data and explore the algorithm in data visualization experiments.
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AlgorithmWatch is looking for a journalist to cover for a parental leave. Send us your application by July 19th.
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The deployment of automated decision making systems (ADM) grows exponentially – and so does the task to watch over this development. That's why we are very grateful for the much needed support from our new employees Lukas, Jasper, Nikolett, Sarah, and Tobias. We're also happy to welcome back Kristina in her new role as operations manager. It's great to have you!
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The project AutoCheck investigates the risks for discrimination inherent in automated decision-making systems (ADMS). In this interview, project manager Jessica Wulf talks about the search for exemplary cases and how the project will support counselling centers and further education on the topic.
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In the last 12 months, the number of AlgorithmWatch team members has more than doubled. We are happy to introduce the new colleagues who joined us at the beginning of 2021. Welcome, Mira, Kerstin, Gregor, Leonie and Jens!
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AlgorithmWatch is looking for a dedicated and experienced Senior Policy and Advocacy Advisor to join our team in Berlin. Fluency in English is required, in German desired.
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We are very pleased to announce our new project Tracing the tracers. Monitoring and analyzing automated decision-making systems used to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. With this, we aim at providing a platform through which to continuously update the public on how ADM systems are being used in Europe — and, comparatively, the rest of the world — in response to the SARS-CoV-2 global outbreak.
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We look forward to the publication of the French and Spanish country issues of the Automating Society Report 2020 by AlgorithmWatch and Bertelsmann Stiftung. Both issues will be launched within an online event in the respective national language.
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Read the German country edition of the Automating Society Report 2020
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How are AI-based systems being used by private companies and public authorities in Europe? The Automating Society Report by AlgorithmWatch and Bertelsmann Stiftung sheds light on what role automated decision-making (ADM) systems play in our lives. On January 25, we will present the German country edition of the report and discuss the results with experts at an online event. The main question will be how the public administration intends to deal with ADM procedures and whether concrete legal rules are needed.
Read moreAmid the Covid pandemic, governments and corporations stepped up the deployments of automated systems. Civil society initiatives attempted to keep some of them in check.
Read moreAhead of the European Commission's Digital Services Act, this podcast explores why it is essential that the new rules on internet governance enable journalists and independent researchers to gain access to data collected by online platforms, and why it is currently so difficult to scrutinize the algorithmic systems that control our online spaces.
Read moreMeet the current guest researchers, who joined AlgorithmWatch in the fall: Luis Windpassinger, Avalon Wolfe & Leonard Haas
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AlgorithmWatch is now also represented in Switzerland - as a Swiss organization with its own team and new exciting projects.
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The Automating Society Report 2020 by AlgorithmWatch and Bertelsmann Stiftung is now available as a special Italian edition.
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Register now for an Online Policy Dialogue by AlgorithmWatch and the EPC, with Margrethe Vestager, Alexandra Geese, Daniela Brönstrup and Jef Ausloos: 30 October, 10:00 CET
Read moreOn 28 October AlgorithmWatch and Bertelsmann Stiftung will publish the Automating Society Report 2020 – register now and join our online launch event!
Read moreWith our new project DataSkop three new colleagues have joined AlgorithmWatch. We are delighted to welcome Sana, Rachel and Johannes to the team.
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Launch of our new report on 'Automated Decision-Making Systems in the COVID-19 Pandemic'
Read moreWe are delighted to introduce you to two guest researchers who are joining our team for the summer: Marie Schröter and Justin Braun
Read moreAlgorithmWatch continues to grow in 2020. In the spring, three new colleagues joined our team, and we are delighted to introduce them to you:
Read moreToday was the kick-off of the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI), a founded by the EU Commission and 14 countries. AlgorithmWatch was appointed to the GPAI as one of the very few civil society organizations.
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Platforms routinely refuse to provide data for public interest investigations—leaving researchers feeling snubbed. Sound familiar? Tell us your story!
Read moreMichele Loi is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Zurich. He argues that proponents of privacy should not put privacy above health – else risk sliding into irrelevance. Not once I have seen a greater threat to privacy than the current pandemic of coronavirus. I am presently a pessimist about privacy: I think that privacy…
Read moreInstall the add-on for Firefox or Chrome to help us monitor Instagram's newsfeed algorithm!
Read moreThe Schöpflin Foundation will support the work of AlgorithmWatch over the next three years. We will use the funding to advance and implement AlgorithmWatch’s fundraising strategy and to sharpen our advocacy positions in order to communicate our goals clearly and effectively to journalists, political and private sector stakeholders, and the general public.
Read moreWe are looking for an experienced colleague to establish and lead AlgorithmWatch Switzerland.
Read moreA few days before 2020, AlgorithmWatch makes nine predictions for the new year. Twelve months from now, we will come back to them and assess our forecasting skills.
Read moreAs the hype around “artificial intelligence” leveled off, the impact of automated decision-making made itself seen. Regulators and civil society fought hard to rein in Big Tech, but much remains to be done to achieve a good balance.
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We are looking for a dedicated and experienced Policy and Advocacy Manager
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On 1 October, the AlgorithmWatch Supervisory Board held its first meeting. We are delighted that Katharina de la Durantaye, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and Steffen Wenzel will be supporting us with their expertise and experience through this important oversight role.
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We are delighted to welcome our new Mozilla Fellow Anouk Ruhaak, who will join our team for almost a year.
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Over the summer, the AlgorithmWatch team has expanded by three new members. We are delighted to introduce our new colleagues: Mackenzie, Nicolas and Fabio.
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The growing research field dedicated to scrutinize algorithmic systems in terms of fairness, accountability and transparency increasingly reveals blind spots, despite its interdisciplinary focus. The initiators of CRAFT (Critiquing and Rethinking Accountability, Fairness and Transparency), a new program embedded in the ACM FAT* conference, point out limitations of existing research methods and call for more holistic approach when it comes to addressing societal problems associated with automated decision-making systems.
Read moreA centralized, permanent and public personal scoring system is very unlikely to appear in EU countries, but this does not mean that a large share of the European population is not or will not be subject to invasive scoring mechanisms.
Read moreThe question of whether automation benefits or damages us citizens is primarily a political one. No one should let themselves be told that only those who have studied mathematics or computer science can take part in the discussion.
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Next week, AlgorithmWatch will participate in a workshop organised by Facebook, convening representatives of the company and external stakeholders to discuss whether and how a Facebook-appointed board could oversee the company's content removal practices.
Read moreOn 7 May Kristina Penner and Matthias Spielkamp presented the key findings of our report Automating Society – Taking Stock of Automated Decision-Making in the EU at re:publica 2019 in Berlin. The video of the session is now available on YouTube.
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Grimme-Institut has nominated the crowdsourcing project OpenSCHUFA by AlgorithmWatch and Open Knowledge Foundation Germany for the Grimme Online Award 2019 in the category SPECIAL (website in German). The award ceremony will take place on 19 June in Cologne. We are very excited about this acknowledgement. However, despite the success of the campaign, it has to…
Read moreNew project of AlgorithmWatch and TU Braunschweig aims to Bridge the structural competence gap for AI in HR.
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Our picks of this year's programme - selected by Veronika Thiel and Sebastian Gießler
Read moreWe are delighted to announce the launch of our new project Governing Platforms, which is funded by Civitates, a collaborative philanthropic initiative that aims to strengthen the capacity of civil society to play its indispensable role in shaping vibrant open European democracies. Our project partners are the European Policy Centre (EPC) and the Mainzer Medieninstitut.
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We are very excited to be one of ten nonprofits and civil society organizations hosting a Mozilla Fellow 2019-2020!
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AlgorithmWatch's inventory of principles, voluntary commitments & frameworks for an ethical use of algorithms and AI (work in progress)
Read moreArtificial intelligence should serve people and respect fundamental rights. This is what an expert group of the EU Commission demands in its now published guidelines for these technologies. However, unalterable ethical principles can no longer be found in it - representatives of industry on the committee have successfully deleted them.
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Automated decisions are part of our everyday lives and have a significant effect on the way we live – often without being aware of it. In order to use these systems it must be guaranteed that they are intelligible and effectively overseen. These are some of the recommendations made in the ‘Atlas of Automation’, presented…
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The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) published the first edition of Ethically Aligned Design: A Vision for Prioritizing Human Well-being with Autonomous and Intelligent Systems (EAD1e). The document was conceived as part of the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems and provides scientific analyses as well as pragmatic and application-oriented recommendations…
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Overview of the press coverage of the report 'Automating Society - Taking Stock of Automated Decision-Making in the EU' and the video of the launch event
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On 29 January we published our new report Automating Society - Taking Stock of Automated Decision-Making in the EU, which was produced in collaboration with the Bertelsmann Stiftung and with the support of the Open Society Foundations. The report is now available (in English) at algorithmwatch.org/en/automating-society-2019/ Launch event in the European Parliament At the invitation of…
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Please join us for the launch of the report Automating Society Taking Stock of Automated Decision-Making in the EU A report by AlgorithmWatch in cooperation with Bertelsmann Stiftung, supported by the Open Society Foundations Date: Tuesday, 29 January 2019 Time: 09:00 – 10:30 Room: Paul-Henri Spaak P4B001, EP, Entrance Altiero Spinelli KINDLY HOSTED BY…
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A warm welcome to Lukas Zielinski, our new guest researcher. Lukas studied Liberal Arts & Sciences in Maastricht where he focused on Politics, Economics, and Philosophy. He then maintained his interdisciplinary approach when he began his Master’s degree in Public Policy in Berlin. His interests evolve around the question of how to actively manage social…
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Join us for the presentation and discussion of Automating Society Taking Stock of Automated Decision-Making in the EU a report by AlgorithmWatch in cooperation with Bertelsmann Stiftung, supported by the Open Society Foundations When Wednesday, 30 January 2019 07h30 – 8h30 Where CPDP conference, Petite Halle Les Halles de Schaerbeek, Rue Royale-Sainte-Marie 22, 1030 Brussels…
Read moreA warm welcome to Lukas Zielinski, our new guest researcher. Lukas studied Liberal Arts & Sciences in Maastricht where he focused on Politics, Economics, and Philosophy. He then maintained his interdisciplinary approach when he began his Master’s degree in Public Policy in Berlin. His interests evolve around the question of how to actively manage social…
Read morePlease join us for the launch of the report Automating Society Taking Stock of Automated Decision-Making in the EU A report by AlgorithmWatch in cooperation with Bertelsmann Stiftung, supported by the Open Society Foundations Date: Tuesday, 29 January 2019 Time: 09:00 – 10:30 Room: Paul-Henri Spaak P4B001, EP, Entrance Altiero Spinelli KINDLY HOSTED BY…
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Data journalists of Spiegel Online and Bayerischer Rundfunk analyzed roughly 2000 credit reports donated to OpenSCHUFA.
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Video of Ray Serrato's presentation at the 1st Meetup on Algorithmic Accountability Reporting of AlgorithmWatch, 5 November 2018
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A warm welcome to Veronika Thiel and Sebastian Gießler, who are now working as researchers for the projects "Atlas of Automation" and "Automated Human Resources Management and Workplace Democracy".
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We set up a mailing list to exchange information about the nascent but growing field of Algorithmic Accountability Reporting. For a detailed description of what we mean by this, please read Nicholas Diakopoulos’ article The Algorithms Beat. This list is meant as a discussion forum for journalists and academic researchers and is maintained by AlgorithmWatch’s Matthias Spielkamp and Wiebke Loosen of…
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Monday, 5 November 2018, 6:30pm at AlgorithmWatch, Bergstr. 22, Berlin-Mitte
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AlgorithmWatch co-founder Lorena Jaume-Palasí attended the Digital Future Science Match 2018 on May 14 and gave a talk on self-determination in the digital era. This is an edited version of her speech.
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The European Commission appointed 52 representatives from civil society, science and industry – 30 men and 22 women - to an Artificial Intelligence (AI) expert group. AlgorithmWatch was selected as an institutional member in an open selection process with 500 applications and is represented by Lorena Jaume-Palasí. The High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence (AI…
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"A Theodor Heuss Medal for the year 2018 is presented to the organisation AlgorithmWatch for its contribution to a differentiated consideration of algorithms and their mechanisms of action. AlgorithmWatch is an initiative that aims to make complex data processing processes comprehensible so that they can be subjected to democratic control". With these words Prof. Dr.…
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Why we started OpenSCHUFA, why you should care about credit scoring & how you can help.
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As of now, you can donate your SCHUFA data at www.openschufa.de. Since the beginning of our campaign more than 20,000 people have already requested their free credit record via www.selbstauskunft.net. Those of you who have received a letter from SCHUFA can upload their data using the web app. This way you will contribute to scrutinzing the scoring process of Germany's…
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From 2 to 4 May the re:publica 2018 will take place in Berlin, offering more than 400 hours of keynotes, talks, meetups and workshops. Here are the sessions we highly recommend: Wednesday, 2 May 2018 2 May | 11:00 | Stage 1 Opening Keynote: How an Algorithmic World Can Be Undermined danah boyd Algorithmic technologies that rely on…
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The emergence of a new technology requires new rules: how do we deal with robots? by Lorena Jaume-Palasí The idea of an automated society, filled with robots at home and at work, was one of the Utopias – and Dystopias – that emerged in literature in response to the introduction of automated systems. In the early…
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On 16 June 2018 AlgorithmWatch will be awarded the Theodor Heuss Medal for "encouraging a differentiated debate about criteria for development of artificial intelligence", as the Theodor Heuss Foundation states. The Theodor Heuss Award Foundation is a nonpartisan entity and was founded in 1964 after the death of Germany first Federal President. In order to…
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Do you have a great story to share of how you investigated an automated decision making (ADM) system? Are you in the middle of doing research on an ADM and can tell us a little about how it's going? Do you have a great idea for probing an ADM system but can't find collaborators to…
Read moreWhy we started OpenSCHUFA, why you should care about credit scoring & how you can help.
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How can we bring more transparency to automated decision making (ADM) processes that have a significant impact on our societies? And what consequences has the use of ADM systems in human resources management, and therefore for workers’ rights and co-determination (employee representation)? We are pleased to announce that we can address these issues in the…
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Pasquale is one of the leading scholars on algorithmic accountability and professor of law at the University of Maryland and author of “The Black Box Society. The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information”
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Coming Thursday (May 11th) we will discuss the question of how to hold algorithms accountable with Frank Pasquale, one of the leading scholars on algorithmic accountability and professor of law at the University of Maryland and author of “The Black Box society. The Secret Algorithms that Control Money and Information”. Please join us at 7 pm at…
Read moreWhen learning was still a predominantly human undertaking. “If a dataset can be downloaded from the web, regardless of whether it originated from a breach or other illegal activity, it is considered to be in the public domain and falls under the IRB exemption for public domain datasets.” This is only one of many staggering…
Read more"Judgments, when being made by humans, can never be considered value-neutral." Says Danny Yadron, technology reporter for Guardian US in his article Facebook controversy shows journalists are more complicated than algorithms. True enough. The problem with his article: The underlying assumption that in contrast to human curation, algorithmic curation is value neutral. It is not. (more…)
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