Dataharvest EIJC 2022

Automated decisions are gaining ground in public administrations across Europe. Yet there is little public understanding of how these systems impact people's lives, in part, because the details of how these systems operate are kept secret.
A team of journalists from Lighthouse Reports has filed over 100 FOI requests across Europe to shed light on the use of algorithms to detect welfare fraud. In this cumbersome process, the Lighthouse Reports team combined an understanding of the underlying tech and its potential for bias with its expertise in filing freedom of information requests and indeed negotiations with authorities, to push officials into the uncharted waters of algorithmic transparency.
Gabriel Geiger from Lighthouse Reports led the negotiations with the public authorities. He will
explain what techniques have succeeded and failed to yield the necessary code, data and documentation. Htet Aung is a data scientist also with Lighthouse Reports and identified the elements of the systems that authorities would need to turn over in order to conduct a meaningful audit of how bias is built into the algorithms.
David Cabo from Civio in Spain has run a court case to achieve access to documents on the topic and will talk about the legal aspects and the importance of setting precedents in the fight for transparency