DataharvestEIJC2020

Automated decisions are on the rise in Sweden's social welfare system,shifting contact between authorities and citizens in need from personal to digital solutions and potentially hiding official decisions in black boxes of secret algorithms. The change has met criticism and journalists and academics address the question. One of them is Anne Kaun from the Södertörn University College. Together with colleagues she has filed a massive freedom of information (FOI) request to 321 government agencies to get an overview whether they work with automated decisions and in which areas they use it. Further, journalists and academics have filed FOI requests to gain access to the algorithms. Some FOI requests had to go to court to get the algorithm as the software provider claimed business secrets. In this session, Anne Kaun will present the work with    defining, tracking, analysing and contextualising these automatedprocesses as academics and journalists do in Sweden.