Alleged Data Quality Issues and Discrimination in USCIS's ATLAS AI Software: A Threat to Trustworthy Immigration Vetting

August 26, 2014

The controversial ATLAS software used by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has come under fire for its opaque algorithmic decision-making, reliance on questionable data quality, potential bias, and unchecked access to sensitive information. This AI incident raises concerns regarding the fairness, transparency, and accountability of artificial intelligence systems in critical governance functions. Ready to help shape responsible AI? JOIN US (This AI incident maps to the Govern function in HISPI Project Cerebellum Trusted AI Model (TAIM)).
Alleged deployer
us-department-of-homeland-security, us-citizenship-and-immigration-services
Alleged developer
us-citizenship-and-immigration-services
Alleged harmed parties
us-naturalized-citizens, us-immigrants, us-citizenship-applicants, us-immigration-applicants

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/260

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.