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How Could Equality and Data Protection Law Shape AI Fairness for People with Disabilities?
Reuben Binns, Reuben Kirkham
July 12, 2021
ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing
20 citations
1 influential
Key Takeaways
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Disability requires a unique approach to AI fairness: The paper argues that AI fairness frameworks designed for other protected characteristics (like race or gender) are insufficient for disability, because discrimination and data protection laws apply differently in disability contexts than they do elsewhere.
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Data protection and equality law together offer stronger protections: By combining data protection regulations with equality law, the paper identifies new legal tools that disabled people's organizations and assistive technology researchers can use to both shape how AI is deployed and challenge harmful applications.
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Current AI fairness frameworks may miss disability-specific harms: The paper suggests that standard AI fairness approaches fail to account for the particular ways AI systems can discriminate against or harm people with disabilities, indicating a gap in how the responsible AI community currently thinks about fairness.
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Disabled people's organizations have underutilized legal leverage: The research highlights that disability advocates have legal pathways—through data protection and equality law—to influence AI development and deployment that may not be as readily available or as well understood as other regulatory approaches.
Abstract
This article examines the concept of 'AI fairness' for people with disabilities from the perspective of data protection and equality law. This examination demonstrates that there is a need for a distinctive approach to AI fairness that is fundamentally different to that used for other protected characteristics, due to the different ways in which discrimination and data protection law applies in respect of Disability. We articulate this new agenda for AI fairness for people with disabilities, explaining how combining data protection and equality law creates new opportunities for disabled people's organisations and assistive technology researchers alike to shape the use of AI, as well as to challenge potential harmful uses.