Automating Inequality

How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor

paperback, 287 pages

Published Aug. 5, 2019 by Picador.

ISBN:
978-1-250-21578-9
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4 stars (1 review)

A powerful investigative look at data-based discrimination—and how technology affects civil and human rights and economic equity

The State of Indiana denies one million applications for healthcare, foodstamps and cash benefits in three years—because a new computer system interprets any mistake as “failure to cooperate.” In Los Angeles, an algorithm calculates the comparative vulnerability of tens of thousands of homeless people in order to prioritize them for an inadequate pool of housing resources. In Pittsburgh, a child welfare agency uses a statistical model to try to predict which children might be future victims of abuse or neglect.

Since the dawn of the digital age, decision-making in finance, employment, politics, health and human services has undergone revolutionary change. Today, automated systems—rather than humans—control which neighborhoods get policed, which families attain needed resources, and who is investigated for fraud. While we all live under this new regime of data, the most invasive …

1 edition

Mostly obvious, but still compelling.

4 stars

A lot of what was written here is unsurprising, especially if you've had to deal with any level of bureaucracy or public services. It's becoming clearer that we're under constant surveillance, and that it's especially true of anyone who needs public services. It goes into depth into a handful of services, creating case studies out of each one to highlight the elements that we should be both aware and cautious of.

Though the book focuses on the US, a lot of the lessons can be translated to places like Europe. These processes, though Europe does have more of a movement around "the right to be forgotten" and the inclusion of the GDPR (which generally seems to be... superficial, at best), are still in existence here. They are used against some of the most vulnerable people: the Romani, poor, asylum-seekers/refugees, immigrants.