GovEx Data Points

A podcast about government and data.
Telling stories from practitioners and academics about how data affects communities and the lives of residents.

Podcast #57 – Ethics and Algorithms

Sep 20, 2018

Algorithms are a growing part of government work. They play a part in items ranging from traffic light decisions to criminal sentencing and a variety of topics in between. However, there is not a consistent way to think about algorithms as a public sector employee, leading to a wide range of usage.

GovEx and a few partners set out to change that through the creation of the Ethics and Algorithms Toolkit. In this episode, we talk with Joy Bonaguro, former Chief Data Officer for the City and County of San Francisco, and Miriam McKinney, an analyst on the GovEx team, about the development of the toolkit. They describe the work to gather feedback from stakeholders, the iteration of work on the toolkit itself, and the ways that anyone can use the toolkit to help center their own work.

If you are interested in learning more about algorithms, check out a preview of the toolkit here. If you’re interested in working with the toolkit and need assistance, please contact us at govex@jhu.edu.

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