Government Is Using Algorithms — Is It Assessing Bias?; Government Technology, December 10, 2018

Michaelle Bond, Government Technology; Government Is Using Algorithms — Is It Assessing Bias?

"“Data science is here to stay. It holds tremendous promise to improve things,” said Julia Stoyanovich, an assistant professor at New York University and former assistant professor in ethical data management at Drexel University. But policymakers need to use it responsibly.

“The first thing we need to teach people is to be skeptical about technology,” she said.

Data review boards, toolkits and software that cities, universities, and data analysts are starting to develop are steps in the right direction to spur policymakers to think critically about data, researchers said."

N.Y. Mayor Taps Drexel Professor For First Algorithm Quality-Control Task Force; Drexel Now, June 4, 2018

Drexel Now; N.Y. Mayor Taps Drexel Professor For First Algorithm Quality-Control Task Force

"But how do we ensure that the algorithms are the impartial arbiters we expect them to be? Drexel University professor Julia Stoyanovich is part of the first group in the nation helping to answer this question in the biggest urban area in the world. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio tapped Stoyanovich to serve on the city’s Automated Decision Systems Task Force, a team charged with creating a process for reviewing algorithms through the lens of fairness, equity and accountability...

The [Automated Decision Systems] Task Force is the product of New York City’s algorithmic accountability law, which was passed in 2017 to ensure transparency in how the city uses automated decision systems. By 2019, the group must “provide recommendations about how agency automated decision systems data may be shared with the public and how agencies may address instances where people are harmed by agency automated decision systems,” according to one of the provisions of the law."