Investigation: HOW IS GOVERNMENT USING BIG DATA?

AI TRAPS: Automating Discrimination The Art of Exposing Injustice - Part 2 The 16th conference of the Disruption Network Lab HOW IS GOVERNMENT USING BIG DATA? Crofton Black (Researcher, Journalist & Writer, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, UK). Moderated by Daniel Eriksson (Head of Technology, Transparency International, SE/DE). AI, algorithms, deep learning, big data - barely a week goes by without a new revelation about our increasingly digital future. Computers will cure cancer, make us richer, prevent crime, decide who gets into the country, determine access to services, map our daily movements, take our jobs away and send us to jail. Successive innovations spark celebration and concern. While new developments offer enticing economic benefits, academics and civil society sound warnings over corporate accountability, the intrusiveness of personal data and the ability of legal frameworks to keep pace with technological challenges. These concerns are particularly acute when it comes to the use of digital technology by governments and the public sector, which are compiling ever larger datasets on citizens as they move towards an increasingly digitised future. Questions abound about what governments are doing with data, who they are paying to do the work, and what the potential outcomes could be, especially for society's most vulnerable people. In May, Crofton Black and Cansu Safak of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism published a report, ‘Government Data Systems: The Bureau Investigates’, examining what IT systems the UK government has been buying. Their report looks at how to use publicly available data to build a picture of companies, services and projects in this area, through website scraping, automated searches, data analysis and freedom of information requests. In this session Crofton Black will present their work and their findings, and discuss systemic problems of transparency over how the government is spending public money. Report: How is government using big data? The Bureau Investigates(https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2019-05-08/algorithms-government-it-systems). https://www.disruptionlab.org/ai-traps Photo Credit: Maria Silvano Produced by Voice Republic For more podcasts visit http://voicerepublic.com