Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) AI Systems Allegedly Discriminate Against Single Mothers
July 10, 2024
Researchers have argued that the Department for Work and Pensions' Universal Credit system disproportionately impacts single mothers. Automated processes in the system, designed to determine eligibility and detect fraud, are reported to have introduced biases, leading to financial instability and hardship. The algorithms allegedly miscalculate earnings and delay childcare reimbursements, in turn exacerbating income volatility and debt among single mothers.
- Alleged deployer
- department-for-work-and-pensions-(dwp)
- Alleged developer
- department-for-work-and-pensions-(dwp)
- Alleged harmed parties
- single-mothers, british-single-mothers
Source
Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/740
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.