Conference Papers
Gupta, A., Wu, V., Webley-Brown, H., King, J., Ho, D. (2023). The Privacy-Bias Tradeoff: Data Minimization and Racial Disparity Assessments in U.S. Government. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT ’23).
Abstract (click to expand)
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An emerging concern in algorithmic fairness is the tension with privacy interests. Data minimization can restrict access to protected attributes, such as race and ethnicity, for bias assessment and mitigation. Less recognized is that for nearly 50 years, the federal government has been engaged in a large-scale experiment in data minimization, limiting (a) data sharing across federal agencies under the Privacy Act of 1974, and (b) data collection under the Paperwork Reduction Act. We document how this “privacy-bias tradeoff” has become an important battleground for fairness assessments in the U.S. government and provides rich lessons for resolving these tradeoffs. President Biden’s 2021 racial justice Executive Order 13,985 mandated that federal agencies conduct equity impact assessments (e.g., for racial disparities) of federal programs. We conduct a comprehensive assessment across high-volume claims agencies that affect many individuals, as well as all agencies filing “equity action plans,” with three findings. First, there is broad agreement in principle that equity impact assessments are important, with few parties raising privacy challenges in theory and many agencies proposing substantial efforts. Second, in practice, major agencies do not collect and may be affirmatively prohibited under the Privacy Act from linking demographic information. This has led to pathological results: until 2022, for instance, the US Dept. of Agriculture imputed race by “visual observation” when race information was not collected. Data minimization has meant that even where agencies want to acquire demographic information in principle, the legal, data infrastructure, and bureaucratic hurdles are severe. Third, we derive policy implications to address these barriers.
Recognition (click to expand)
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Best Paper Award – FAccT 2023
- Student Paper Award – Privacy Papers for Policymakers (PPPM) by the Future of Privacy Forum
Working Papers
Divisions at Home, Broken Promises Abroad? How Domestic Politics Shapes the United States’ Nuclear Credibility (with Lauren Sukin). Revise and Resubmit at International Studies Quarterly.
Works in Progress
Telling on Yourself To Build Trust: The Effect of Open Data Initiatives on Public Perceptions of the Police.
Why Watch The Watchers? Frame Utilization In Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS) Legislation and Media Coverage.
Research Reports
Webley-Brown, H., Sipek, A., Buoymaster, K., Shivalkar, J., Owen, W., Manis, E. (2022). ShotSpotter and the Misfires of Gunshot Detection Technology. Surveillance Technology Oversight Project.
Loshkajian, N., Van Doran, S., Melendi, J., Saran, S., Webley-Brown, H., Manis, E. (2022). Privatizing The Surveillance State: How Police Foundations Undermine Rule of Law. Surveillance Technology Oversight Project.
Webley-Brown, H. (2021). False Freedom: Exploring Clients’ Pretrial Experiences on Electronic Monitors. The Bail Project.