Publications - AlgorithmWatch

24 September 2021

Domestic COVID certificates: what does the evidence say?

Born to help reopen international travel routes, digital COVID certificates are now required in several countries to enter premises such as bars, restaurants, gyms, pools, and museums, and to attend large public events. But do they work — and what for, precisely? More fundamentally, is it even possible to have an evidence-based debate about them at all? Tracing The Tracers looked at the lessons we should learn from the available literature, with the help of a stellar group of researchers.

5 August 2021

Making sense of digital contact tracing apps for the next pandemics

In an interview with AlgorithmWatch, Prof. Susan Landau discusses why we need to resist fear in the face of pandemic uncertainty and the normalization of health surveillance technologies — and why the time to have a broad democratic discussion about their future uses is now.

Piero Nigro | Unsplash

Analysis8 July 2021

Digital contact tracing apps: do they actually work? A review of early evidence

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, many smartphone apps were launched to complement and augment manual contact tracing efforts without a priori knowledge of their actual effectiveness. A year later, do we know if they worked as intended? An analysis of early evidence—from both the literature and actual usage—by AlgorithmWatch finds that results, so far, are contradictory and that comparability issues might prevent an informed, overall judgment on the role of digital contact tracing apps in response to the COVID-19 pandemic altogether.

22 June 2021

Automated Decision-Making Systems in the Public Sector – An Impact Assessment Tool for Public Authorities

How can we ensure a trustworthy use of automated decision-making systems (ADMS) in the public administration? AlgorithmWatch and AlgorithmWatch Switzerland developed a concrete and practicable impact assessment tool for ADMS in the public sector. This publication provides a framework ready to be implemented for the evaluation of specific ADMS by public authorities at different levels.

Chris Barbalis | Unsplash

18 May 2021

Towards accountability in the use of Artificial Intelligence for Public Administrations

Michele Loi und Matthias Spielkamp analyze the regulatory content of 16 guideline documents about the use of AI in the public sector, by mapping their requirements to those of our philosophical account of accountability, and conclude that while some guidelines refer processes that amount to auditing, it seems that the debate would benefit from more clarity about the nature of the entitlement of auditors and the goals of auditing, also in order to develop ethically meaningful standards with respect to which different forms of auditing can be evaluated and compared.

Mat Napo | Unsplash

Analysis9 May 2021

In Italy, general practitioners and some regions adopt COVID-19 vaccine prioritization algorithms

Amid a chaotic rollout of the national vaccination plan, the Italian Federation of General Practitioners (FIMMG) and some regions in Italy are resorting to algorithms to more efficiently priorities who gets vaccinated against COVID-19.

7 May 2021

HR Puzzle

A simulation on machine learning and so-called "artificial intelligence" in human resources management.

7 May 2021

People analytics in the workplace – how to effectively enforce labor rights

Increasingly, complex computational systems are being used to monitor, score, manage, promote and even fire employees. These systems are often referred to as people analytics. They have the potential to profoundly influence, alter, and redirect the lives of people at work, and therefore impact their life chances in general. In order for people to not suffer from the use of these systems but ideally benefit from it, there needs to be a comprehensive governance framework. Here’s how we will get there.

29 March 2021

Analysis: Digital vaccine certificates – global patchwork, little transparency

A global debate has sparked around the idea of implementing a digital infrastructure to prove a person’s COVID-19 vaccination status across borders. But as the initiatives multiply across Europe and all over the globe, an international consensus is hard to reach — and issues still abound.