#automatingsociety (25 results)

Automating Society 2020 – Country issues Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland & Spain

Find all country issues of the Automating Society 2020 report and videos of the launch events on this page.

Presentation of the French and Spanish country issues of the Automating Society Report

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.

Now available: The German edition of the Automating Society Report 2020

Read the German country edition of the Automating Society Report 2020

Register now: Launch event of the German edition of the Automating Society Report on 25 January 2021

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.

Italian country issue of the Automating Society Report 2020 released

The Automating Society Report 2020 by AlgorithmWatch and Bertelsmann Stiftung is now available as a special Italian edition.

Coming soon: Automating Society Report 2020 – Join our launch event on 28 October!

On 28 October AlgorithmWatch and Bertelsmann Stiftung will publish the Automating Society Report 2020 – register now and join our online launch event!

In Italy, an appetite for face recognition in football stadiums

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

Europe wants to be a role model for technological responses to COVID-19. But it’s complicated.

Launch of our new report on 'Automated Decision-Making Systems in the COVID-19 Pandemic'

ADM Systems in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A European Perspective

Introduction

Pre-crime at the tax office: How Poland automated the fight against VAT fraud.

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.

In a quest to optimize welfare management, Denmark built a surveillance behemoth

Udbetaling Danmark was created in 2012 to streamline the payment of welfare benefits. Its fraud control algorithms can access the personal data of millions of citizens, not all of whom receive welfare payments.

Broken Horizon: In Greece, research in automation fails to find applications

Greek researchers led hundreds of research projects that involved automation, but very few found their way into real-life uses. Opinions differ on where the innovation pipeline is clogged.

Swiss police automated crime predictions but has little to show for it

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.

Slovenian police acquires automated tools first, legalizes them later

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.

Portugal: Automated verification of prescriptions helped crack down on medical fraud

Portugal’s national health service introduced a centralized, automated system to verify medical prescriptions in 2016. One year later, it flagged 20 million euros’ worth of fraud.

Can AI mitigate the climate crisis? Not really.

Several institutions claim that AI will contribute to solving the climate crisis, but evidence is scant. On the contrary, AI has a track record of helping emit more greenhouse gases.

Estonia: A city is automating homes to reduce energy consumption

The city of Tartu installed automated systems in old housing blocks. Using nudges, sensors and automated decision-making, it hopes to reduce energy consumption by two-thirds.

Finland: How to unionize when your boss is an algorithm and you’re self-employed

A group of Finnish couriers launched the Justice4Couriers campaign in 2018. Although they are technically self-employed, they must obey the whims of their platform’s algorithm. They are fighting back.

In Spain, the VioGén algorithm attempts to forecast gender violence

As part of a program to curb feminicides, Spain built VioGén, an algorithm that assesses the risk faced by victims of gender violence. It remains a work in progress.

Brexit: How EU nationals navigate the automated checks of the “Settled Status” program

The British Home Office deployed a mobile app for EU citizens to obtain permission to stay in the UK. Some are confident about the partly automated process, others live Kafkaesque experiences.

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 think about less repressive alternatives.

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 the hope of giving every student the same chances.

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

Trelleborg is Sweden’s front-runner in automating welfare distribution. An analysis of the system's source code brought little transparency – but revealed that the personal data of hundreds was wrongly made public.

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 ago and kept oscillating between care and control, but mostly control.

#rp19 talk: Citizen Scoring in the EU – it happens at home, not only in China!

On 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.