How Surveillance Tech Discriminates Against Disabled People in Education, Policing, Healthcare, and the Workplace
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Algorithmic technologies are everywhere, and are routinely deployed to make assessments and recommendations, or surveil activities and habits. But their encoded prejudices can create self-perpetuating cycles of discrimination and bias, among other harms. While scholars and advocates have demonstrated these harms, the specific and disproportionate negative impacts that surveillance and algorithmic tools can have on disabled people must still be better addressed.
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A new report from CDT, “Ableism And Disability Discrimination In New Surveillance Technologies,” examines four areas where these tools are used for surveillance, monitoring and discipline, with particularly harmful impacts for disabled people: education, the criminal legal system, healthcare, and the workplace. In each context, we use examples to illustrate how surveillance and algorithmic tools can violate people’s privacy, contribute to or accelerate existing harm and discrimination, and undermine broader public policy objectives like public safety.
As CDT’s Lydia X. Z. Brown wrote in a post analyzing the report’s findings, “Disabled people are simultaneously hyper-surveilled and often erased in society. On one hand, we are treated as potentially dangerous, deceptive, or wasteful, and thus subject to technologies that seek to flag noncompliance, cheating, or fraud. On the other hand, we are treated as functionally invisible, and thus left to contend with the damaging and discriminatory impact of technologies that seek to drive efficiency, maximize production, and promote wellness without considering their deleterious effect on the physical and mental health of disabled people caught in their wake. The ableist impact of algorithmic surveillance technologies demands critical attention from researchers, developers, and policymakers.”
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In Case You Missed It
- In a Supreme Court brief, CDT and the Electronic Frontier Foundation led a coalition of human rights organizations in arguing that the Court should prevent Texas’s controversial social media bill from going into effect. As CDT President and CEO Alexandra Givens explained, "Under this misguided law, platforms would have to end content moderation practices that often benefit digital users. For example, sites that forbid encouraging suicide or promoting terrorism but allow other discussions of these topics would face the threat of lawsuits accusing them of 'bias.' Policies that bar demeaning people based on race, religion, or other characteristics but allow discussions of racism or sharing your religious beliefs could also be banned under the Texas law."
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- CDT recently released a new research paper, “Shedding Light on Shadowbanning.” The report examines how opaque content moderation practices on social media, colloquially known as “shadowbanning," work on social media, which groups believe they have been shadowbanned, and what effects the popular perception of shadowbanning has on online speech.
- CDT and the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) welcomed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Department of Justice‘s announcement of guidance for preventing algorithms and AI-based systems from discriminating against people with disabilities. Such guidance is the first of its kind from a U.S. government agency, and follows long-standing calls from CDT, AAPD, and other civil society organizations for stronger oversight and robust enforcement against these technologies, which often discriminate against disabled jobseekers and employees.
- In April, European institutions reached a political agreement on the EU’s flagship platform and content governance regulation, the Digital Services Act (DSA). CDT welcomed this significant step forward for increasing platform accountability and protecting users’ fundamental rights online, and in a blog post, we took a look at what comes next for the DSA.
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CDT in the Press
Emma Llansó, Director of CDT’s Free Expression Project, joined Slate’s “What’s Next” podcast for a conversation on the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT)’s role in social media moderation of extremist content.
Asha Allen, CDT Europe’s Advocacy Director for Europe, Online Expression & Civic Space, authored an op-ed in Wired about civil society concerns with the opacity of the EU’s interinstitutional negotiations on the new Digital Services Act.
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CDT "in Person"- Mark your calendars — Tech Prom is back! Join CDT on Thursday, October 6 at The Anthem in Washington, D.C. for an evening of mixing and mingling with leaders in the tech policy space. You won’t want to miss it!
- On May 26, join R Street in a conversation on net neutrality, Title II, and the way forward. CDT’s own Cody Venzke, Senior Counsel of the Equity in Civic Technology project, will join a panel looking to answer questions around what the FCC can do to support net neutrality in 2022 and beyond.
- Have you listened to the latest episode of CDT’s podcast, Tech Talk? Join host Jamal Magby and Nabiha Syed, CEO of The Markup and CDT Advisory Council member, in a conversation about The Markup and how they use investigative journalism to illustrate how powerful institutions are using technology to change our society.
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Partner Spotlight
CDT is proud to partner with a broad array of volunteer attorneys as part of our Collaborating Attorney Network. These attorneys work closely with our staff on a pro bono basis, assisting with litigation, legislation analysis, and drafting administrative comments. We also rely on Collaborating Attorneys to help identify emerging legal issues in the technology space. You can find more information and how to join the Collaborating Attorney Network on our website.
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Staff Spotlight
Ophélie Stockhem, Advocacy & Communications Assistant, CDT Europe
How long have you been working in digital rights? CDT is my first hands-on professional experience in digital rights, though my early experience in the NGOs sphere and my academic background opened the door to the fascinating world of technology and its own set of challenges. Most notable and oldest memory was a piece I wrote for my BA’s Seminar on Legal Theory — in approximate English, and fortunately unpublished — on the use of polygraphs in the American judicial system. Also, if advocating for my own access to our ancient family computer in the early 2000s does count, you might want to add a few years to the picture!
What is your proudest moment while here at CDT? Definitely joining CDT in October and meeting — though ‘only’ virtually for our U.S. colleagues — such a wonderful, diverse, and talented team, on this side and the other side of the Atlantic.
What is the most recent cultural activity you've been to? While on holiday in Provence, France, I went to the ‘Quarry of Lights’ in a little town, a pretty amazing interactive ‘sound and lights’ show in a quarry. The exhibition was half on Venice — a city I had the chance to study in but not without seeing the impact of the growingly invasive acqua alta — and on artist Yves Klein.
Dogs or cats? Originally dogs, for their unconditional attention, their faithfulness and the beginner’s mind they adopt in the face of basically anything they see on earth. But keeping a friend’s cat for 2 days made me realize that they are fascinating — though a bit self-involved — little creatures.
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