How Data in Public Policy Can Foster Bias and Inequality

Virginia Eubanks, associate professor of political science at the University at Albany, SUNY, a founding member of the Our Data Bodies project, a fellow at New America and the author of Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor (St. Martin's Press, 2018), warns of the use of data mining and algorithms in public policy and providing public services.

@PopTechWorks says many of these systems are rationalized, saying they remove racial bias in front-line case work. But she says these systems *move* bias from front line to economists, data analysts + computer programmers. pic.twitter.com/inzaGi0AFN

— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) January 29, 2018