Data, Tech & Black Communities

Algorithms increasingly influence our digital lives – from the search results we see to the shows that Netflix recommends to us – but they are also encroaching into our real lives, and being used to make decisions that affect our futures.

With remote learning now the norm, universities are using surveillance software to keep tabs on students who are not engaging with their studies

How schools use software to monitor pupils

As part of DFF's Digital Rights Around the World Series, we examine the case of the National Pupil Database in the UK.

Guide on how the UK’s borders, immigrations, and citizenship system tracks and spies on people, and which companies profit.

"Any data scientist working to automate issues of a social nature, in effect, is engaged in making moral and ethical decisions – they are not simply dealing with purely technical work but with a practice that actively impacts individual people." - Abeba Birhane

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) presents risks to equality, potentially embedding bias and discrimination. Auditing tools are often promised as a solution. However our new research, which examines tools for auditing AI used in recruitment, finds these tools are often inadequate in ensuring compliance with UK Equality Law, good governance and best practice. We argue in this report that a more comprehensive approach than technical auditing is needed to safeguard equality in the use of AI for hiring, which shapes access to work. Here, we present first steps which could be taken to achieve this. We also publish a prototype AI Equality Impact Assessment which we plan to develop and pilot.

A growing group of lawyers are uncovering, navigating, and fighting the automated systems that deny the poor housing, jobs, and basic services. Increasingly, the fight over a client’s eligibility now involves some kind of algorithm. “In some cases, it probably should just be shut down because there’s no way to make it equitable,”

Arrest data biases predictive tools because police are known to arrest more people in Black and other minority neighborhoods, which leads algorithms to direct more policing to those areas, which leads to more arrests. The result is that predictive tools misallocate police patrols: some neighborhoods are unfairly designated crime hot spots while others are underpoliced.

Racism is a systemic issue that pervades every aspect of life in the United States and around the world. In recent months, its corrosive…

Many of the issues discussed about data & racial inequality have been the focus by numerous organizations. This is a list of these organisations (largely US based)

This is what California just voted to protect. multibillion dollar tech companies legally paying people $2.50 per hour. no benefits, no union, and no power make their own decisions about the work they do like actual independent contractors. You legalized violating Labor law. https://t.co/7iD1Z1RMbY— (@BethLynch2020) February 19, 2021

The Scottish Racism Project does two things: (1) take deep dives into the various ways racism has manifested itself up north, explore courses of action to remedy this, and look at how BAME communities can empower themselves in the face of adversity (2) offer and find solidarity with BAME individuals who have shared real lives personal stories of racism and want the truth of their experiences to be known far and wide, often because the wider Scottish Press were uninterested when approached.

Call for more transparency on how such tools are used in public services as 20 councils stop using computer algorithms. The Home Office recently stopped using an algorithm to help decide visa applications after allegations that it contained “entrenched racism”.

On the questionable use of Artificial Intelligence for job applications. An exclusive data analysis by BR (Bavarian Broadcasting) data journalists shows that an AI for personality assessment can be swayed by appearances. This might perpetuate stereotypes while potentially costing candidates the job.

Article about the (unpaid) role that Black doctors are playing on Clubhouse in order to combat misinformation about the Covid vaccine. The fact that this platform isn't bothering to even try to address the negative externality of misinformation is a perfect example of a negative impact of data and tech. Black people are already at higher risk of being infected by Covid and of dying from it so the impact of misinformation is disproportionate.

Centre for Critical Race and Digital Studies. List of publications, books, reports and videos regarding the intersection of race & digital/data/tech.

As the Black Lives Matter protests rage on in the US, many people in Scotland are wondering what they can do to show solidarity with the movement. Between 2000 and 2013, there were more race-related murders per capita in Scotland than in the rest of the UK – 1.8 murders per million, compared to 1.3, according to the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER).

Can transparency bring accountability to public-sector algorithmic decision-making (ADM) systems? High-profile retractions have taken place against a shift in public sentiment towards greater scepticism and mistrust of ‘black box’ technologies, evidenced in increasing awareness of the possible risks for citizens of the potentially invasive profiling.

Sally Collier to appear before education select committee over A-levels and GCSE results debacle. Use of algorithms disproportionately affected poorer and Black communities.

After a legal challenge to the automatic algorithm, the UK will "redesign" its visa process. The Home Office has agreed to stop using a computer algorithm to help decide visa applications after allegations that it contained "entrenched racism".

A Home Office-funded project that used artificial intelligence to predict gun and knife crime was found to be wildly inaccurate. “Basing our arguments on inaccuracy is problematic because the tech deficiencies are solvable through time. Even if the algorithm was set to be 100 percent accurate, there would still be bias in this system.”

Machine learning programs trained with patients’ own reports find problems that doctors miss—especially in Black people. Full study here: https://go.nature.com/3pnOwWP

#blacklivesmatter - Lets use this sheet and data to keep a track on those promises from companies and organisations.

As protests and unrest have taken over the U.S. and other parts of the world - brands rushed to speak out and align themselves with anti-racism. We’ve gathered 100 + examples of brands responding to the Black Lives Matter movement. We’ve highlighted their responses, their actions and some reactions. Use this link to share this deck: https://bit.ly/2N9AV4O

Its coming up to 6 months since George Floyd was murdered by the Minneapolis police. One of the things I am planning is a look at all those pledges to make a change by companies to see if they actually did what they pledged. Part of my work is to extract the data from this amazing presentation. Put into a form where others can add to it, likely a airtable, mutliple google sheets or github somehow?

Distrust has its roots in ‘scientific’ experiments that aimed to prove racial superiority. As the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine continues across the UK, with more than 14m already having had the jab, in communities of colour there remains deep concern over its safety. Polls show that people of colour are around 20 per cent less likely to have a vaccination than the population as a whole.

As we hand over decision-making regarding social issues to automated systems developed by profit-driven corporates, not only are we allowing our social concerns to be dictated by the profit incentive, but we are also handing over moral and ethical questions to the corporate world, argues ABEBA BIRHANE

Colonialism in the age of Artificial Intelligence takes the form of “state-of-the-art algorithms” and “AI driven solutions” unsuited to African problems, and hinders the development of local products, leaving the continent dependent on Western software and infrastructure.

This report has been developed to provide context and understanding for why Black Geographers has emerged as a necessary intervention, and what disparities the organisation aims to address going forward. There is a lack of research aimed at black students within geography so we're creating our own and giving black students a platform to speak up and be heard.