this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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Ah, yes, yes. We're not racist, it's the system! It's an algorithm! I never heard that one before. It's also a sustym that randomly checks you at the airport.
It all depends on how truly random the system is. Each checkout (or ticket, or whatever) assigned a random number between 1 and 20, with 20 meaning audit? That's non-discriminatory. But it's also not tuned for the purpose of finding shoplifters (etc).
When you start adding criteria, they are often at least correlated with discrimination. Food stamps were mentioned elsewhere. Flight history to/from a list of hostile countries for airports. The list goes on. Technically not based on things like race, but it's a paper-thin distinction in some cases.
How do you know there's not someone looking at se purity cameras triggering random audits?
Then that's not random by any definition of the word. It's targeted.
It's entirely possible, even likely, that management would keep claiming that it's random when it's not. But then we're not talking about any algorithms.
That's the point I'm making.