Racial Equity in Tech Policy Accelerator
We believe technology policy has the potential to increase opportunity and limit harms, when done through a racial equity lens. This is why the Racial Equity in Technology Policy Accelerator is a joint initiative by the Federation of American Scientists’ Day One Project and the Kapor Center.
Together we identified, developed, and published a set of racial justice & technology policy ideas to be implemented by the legislative and executive branches. Read the memos below.
The authors propose that the White House Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse convene government actors, civil society organizations, and industry representatives to create an Anti-Online Harassment (AOH) Hub to improve and standardize responses to online harassment and to provide evidence-based recommendations to the Task Force.
A large portion of gig workers are people of color, and the nature of their temporary and largely unregulated work can leave them vulnerable to economic instability and workplace abuse. To increase protections for fair work, the Department of Labor should create an Office of the Ombudsman for Fair Work.
Maternal mortality is a crisis in the United States. The Biden-Harris Administration should establish an AI Center of Excellence to bring together data sources and then analyze, diagnose, and address maternal health disparities, all while demonstrating trustworthy and responsible AI principles.
To address problems of algorithmic harm, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) should invest in the development of comprehensive AI auditing tools, and federal agencies with the charge of protecting civil rights and liberties should collaborate with NIST to develop these tools and push for comprehensive system audits.
People working in the gig economy, tech supply chain, and other automation-adjacent roles face a huge barrier to unionizing their workplaces. These roles, which are among the fastest-growing segments of the U.S. economy, are overwhelmingly filled by BIPOC workers. The Biden-Harris Administration can promote racial equity and support low-wage BIPOC workers’ unionization efforts by creating a National Bargaining in Good Faith Fund.
In order to ensure that agency use of AI tools is legal, effective, and equitable, the Biden-Harris Administration should establish a Federal Artificial Intelligence Program to govern the procurement of algorithmic technology.
Over the past decade, algorithmic decision-making has increasingly impacted the lives of American consumers, and now is the time to ensure lending models offered by private companies are fair and transparent.
The Biden-Harris Administration should issue an executive order to embed Radical Participatory Design (RPD) into the design and development of all government policies, products, and services, and to require all federally-funded research to use Radical Participatory Research (RPR).
Law enforcement agencies in the US regularly deploy surveillance tactics to monitor the online activity of individuals and organizations, leaving the public in the dark about how this data is used and stored. Korica Simon offers a set of actions that federal agencies and Congress should implement to preserve the public’s constitutional rights.
Algorithmic systems are inescapable in modern life. The DOJ should modernize the enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to guide effective corrective action for algorithmic systems that produce discriminatory outcomes with regard to federal benefits.
Reliable internet access is a key tool for connecting communities and coordinating disaster preparation and relief, yet 21 million Americans lack connectivity. Congress and the Biden administration can adopt a framework for digital justice that focuses on improving digital and climate literacy.