Scrutiny required! Making technology a positive impact on UK Black lives

How can technology and data be designed with empathy and justice? How can we connect as UK Black communities to shape technology’s impact on our lives? How might we build back better and fairer?

There is no doubt that data and technology are changing the way we live our lives — but is this always to our benefit? How does this affect the lives of Black people in the UK? And what should Black people do to make this impact positive? We don’t have all the answers, but we know from civic movement history that we can make a positive impact when we work together.

The National Lottery Community Fund has funded us to support and bring together efforts to do just that. We will work openly and collaboratively with people concerned about the influence of technology on Black lives. We aim to support Black leaders and Black communities by curating tools, examples, approaches, and networks they need to:

• better understand the impact technology has on Black lives
• build cases with tech companies to design better, with empathy and justice in mind
• work with policy and change-makers to make technology a force for good
• connect with others working to improve the impact of technology on communities

We believe the resources we create and share as part of this project can also be of value to other marginalised communities in the UK and actively encourage reusing methods, tools, lessons to be learned from this project. We will support work that seeks to mitigate the negative and sometimes unintended consequences of emerging technology like Artificial Intelligence (AI) or practices such as the extensive use of data, and work that actively explores building better technology in the first place.

We aim to both ‘build back better’ and ‘build back fairer’. We support the UK Black communities resilience — to resist and challenge negative consequences of data and technology. We work towards fairness — a future where technology and policy are designed to actively enable and improve the lives of marginalised communities impacted by technology.

Technology & Data Impacts Black Lives

We know that technology and data builds on existing biases, which means negative impacts are compounded for marginalised communities.

We’ve seen the stories about tools that create a hostile environment for Black migrants and ‘speedy boarding for white people’.

We’ve felt the impact on our children’s future when A-level algorithms designed to replace exams disrupted by the pandemic ‘failed to address the under-predictions for Black students (by teachers)’ and ‘did not take into account the impact of multiple disadvantages’.

We know that Automated Hiring Systems in use in the UK claim to reduce bias but build existing discrimination in the selection of candidates thanks to the training data used.

In health, our NHS aims to use more cutting edge technology, an aim we support to improve outcomes. However, we know from cases in the US, that the use of opaque algorithms and lack of evaluation can mask whether Black people receive unequal treatment and healthcare outcomes.

And technology doesn’t just impact Black lives at work, in education and when we visit our GPs, it’s creeping into every facet of our lives. Facial recognition is more than just a privacy concern, it has implications for how well this technology recognises Black people. Retailers like the Co-op are using facial recognition to track shoplifters despite ‘the Court of Appeal ruling parts of its use to be unlawful’ in 2020.

Algorithmic Justice League (AJL) / Joy Buolamwini — Credit: Joy Buolamwini via Flickr

So what can we do about it? How can technology companies design for justice, inclusion, and build better products that actually support marginalised communities? How can policy make lives better for those negatively impacted by technology?

Supporting You to Build Back Better

There’s no denying that technology and data has a huge impact on our lives. There’s no denying that the pandemic has prompted more adoption of these technologies. There’s also no denying that individuals will struggle to make a difference on their own: we are stronger together.

With this in mind, our first priority is connecting you with others working in the same space. We aim to help build networks within Black communities and between Black leaders so you can find support when you need it.

We’re also aware that technological effects can be diffuse and hard to grasp — especially as they relate to everyday life. We’ll be working with you to build the resources that help you understand the real impact of AI, data and technology on Black lives.

We know you have other priorities, so we’ll be using our expertise to highlight where technology, data, and AI make the things you care about worse or more pressing, and what you can do about it.

Finally, we will help build a portfolio of bookmarks containing examples, cases, methods, and tools that can help you work with change-makers, policymakers, and technology companies to design better products.

Our aim is not simply to reduce the cost of technology on Black lives but to design systems that support and include marginalised communities.

To pull all of this together, here’s how you can help:

Get in touch

Contact us about this project, let us know what you think, who else we should speak to, and how we can make this a success.

Share what you know

Contribute to our shared, public bookmarks. We’d love your resources, examples of data and technology’s impact on Black lives, or links to other work in this area.

We ran roundtables in March 2021 connecting UK Black communities around Data, Tech &: Education, Crime & Justice, Employment & Enterprise, Health, and a final presentation.

Acknowledgments: Illustrations from BlackIllustrations.com — Life is Good — Lifestyle Pack and The Disability Pack