Opaque Fraud Detection Algorithm by the UK’s Department of Work and Pensions Allegedly Discriminated against People with Disabilities

October 15, 2019

The UK’s Department of Work and Pensions is under scrutiny following allegations that its benefit fraud detection algorithm disproportionately targets individuals with disabilities. This highlights the need for trustworthy AI practices, responsible governance, and safe and secure AI in public services.

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Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

Alleged deployer
uk-department-of-work-and-pensions
Alleged developer
uipath
Alleged harmed parties
people-with-disabilities

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/189

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.

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