Thursday 5 November 2020 5:30pm to 6:30pm
Online webinar
About
Speaker: Dr Reuben Binns, University of Oxford
Abstract: Reuben's presentation will be based on joint work with Dr Michael Veale, UCL Faculty of Laws. 'Article 22 of the GDPR contains provisions which restrict the use of automated decision making systems where they are 'solely automated' and have 'legal or similarly significant effects'. The exact remedies the provision provides as well as their utility are subject to a debate that this paper does not engage in. Instead, we focus solely on the scope of Article 22, and on a set of understudied ambiguities which arise when human intervention and/or a decision's significance can be stratified by stages or by particular decision outcomes. These ambiguities are residual to those addressed in previous guidance around the meaning of 'meaningful human input' and 'significance'; they would remain even if we had comprehensive working definitions. We begin by introducing some examples of automated decision making which involve multiple stages and/or effects with different levels of legal or similar significance, to motivate the debate. We then outline three typical roles that automated systems play; decision-support, triaging, and consolidation of human decisions. We then outline challenges and complications that these bring, suggesting some approaches for their resolution.
Biography: Reuben Binns is an Associate Professor of Human Centred Computing, working between computer science, law, and philosophy, focusing on data protection, machine learning, and the regulation of and by technology. Between 2018-2020, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in AI at the Information Commissioner's Office, addressing AI / ML and data protection. He joined the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford as a postdoctoral researcher in 2015. He received his Ph.D. in Web Science from The University of Southampton in 2015.
Zoom Link: Register online