Tag: fairness

Concerns About Privacy, Accuracy And Fairness Raises As Government Agencies Are Tapping A Facial Recognition Company To Prove You’re You
TECHNOLOGY

Concerns About Privacy, Accuracy And Fairness Raises As Government Agencies Are Tapping A Facial Recognition Company To Prove You’re You

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service is planning to require citizens to create accounts with a private facial recognition company in order to file taxes online. The IRS is joining a growing number of federal and state agencies that have contracted with ID.me to authenticate the identities of people accessing services. The IRS’s move is aimed at cutting down on identity theft, a crime that affects millions of Americans. The IRS, in particular, has reported a number of tax filings from people claiming to be others, and fraud in many of the programs that were administered as part of the American Relief Plan has been a major concern to the government. The IRS decision has prompted a backlash, in part over concerns about requiring citizens to use facial recognition technology and in part over di...
The Rights Of Transgender Athletes Striking A Balance Between Fairness In Competition
LGBTQ

The Rights Of Transgender Athletes Striking A Balance Between Fairness In Competition

In a majority of U.S. states, bills aiming to restrict who can compete in women’s sports at public institutions have either been signed into law or are working their way through state legislatures. Caught up in this political point-scoring are real people – both trans athletes who want to participate in competitive sports and those competing against them. As a professor of ethics and public policy, I spend much of my time thinking about the role of the law in protecting the rights of individuals, especially when the rights of some people appear to conflict with the rights of others. How to accommodate transgender athletes in competitive sports – or whether they should be accommodated at all – has become one of these conflicts. On one side are transgender athletes who want to compete in...
Here’s How To Promote Algorithmic Fairness – Biased AI Can Be Bad For Your Health
AI, TECHNOLOGY

Here’s How To Promote Algorithmic Fairness – Biased AI Can Be Bad For Your Health

Artificial intelligence holds great promise for improving human health by helping doctors make accurate diagnoses and treatment decisions. It can also lead to discrimination that can harm minorities, women and economically disadvantaged people. The question is, when health care algorithms discriminate, what recourse do people have? A prominent example of this kind of discrimination is an algorithm used to refer chronically ill patients to programs that care for high-risk patients. A study in 2019 found that the algorithm favored whites over sicker African Americans in selecting patients for these beneficial services. This is because it used past medical expenditures as a proxy for medical needs. Poverty and difficulty accessing health care often prevent African Americans from spending a...