Launch event for the report “Automating Society” in the European Parliament

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 MEP Liisa Jaakonsaari, S&D MEP Michał Boni, EPP MEP Julia Reda, Greens/EFA EXPERTS PANEL WITH Minna Ruckenstein Professor at the Consumer Society Research Centre and the Helsinki Center for Digital Humanities, University of Helsinki Ursula Pachl Deputy Director General, BEUC, and member of the EU High Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence Prabhat Agarwal Deputy Head of the E-Commerce and Online Platforms Unit, Directorate-General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology, European Commission Matthias Spielkamp Executive Director AlgorithmWatch See the complete agenda.  

About the report

Systems for automated decision-making or decision support (ADM) are on the rise in EU countries: Profiling job applicants based on their personal emails in Finland, allocating treatment for patients in the public health system in Italy, sorting the unemployed in Poland, automatically identifying children vulnerable to neglect in Denmark, detecting welfare fraud in the Netherlands, credit scoring systems in many EU countries – the range of applications has broadened to almost all aspects of daily life. This begs a lot of questions: Do we need new laws? Do we need new oversight institutions? Who do we fund to develop answers to the challenges ahead? Where should we invest? How do we enable citizens – patients, employees, consumers – to deal with this? For the report “Automating Society – Taking Stock of Automated Decision-Making in the EU”, our experts have looked at the situation at the EU level but also in 12 Member States: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK. We assessed not only the political discussions and initiatives in these countries but also present a section “ADM in Action” for all states, listing examples of automated decision-making already in use. This is the first time a comprehensive study has been done on the state of automated decision-making in Europe.

Agenda

Introduction

Brigitte Alfter Research network coordinator for the report and facilitator of the event        

Welcoming remarks

Ralph Müller-Eiselt Director, Bertelsmann Stiftung

Presentation of the core findings of the report

Matthias Spielkamp, Executive Director AlgorithmWatch

Comments on the report by the hosting MEPs

Liisa Jaakonsaari, S&D Julia Reda, Greens/EFA Michał Boni, EPP

Panel discussion about the findings with

Minna Ruckenstein professor at the Consumer Society Research Centre and the Helsinki Center for Digital Humanities, University of Helsinki

Ursula Pachl Deputy Director General, BEUC, and member of the EU High Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence

Prabhat Agarwal Deputy Head of the E-Commerce and Online Platforms Unit, Directorate-General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology, European Commission

Matthias Spielkamp Executive Director AlgorithmWatch

Q&A with the audience

Registration

Registration for external participant without access to the EP is closed. If you have access to the European Parliament (e.g. MEPs, EP staff or journalists), you can also attend the event on 29 January without registering. If you have any questions or comments, please contact events@algorithmwatch.org