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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Robert Booth UK technology editor

Revealed: bias found in AI system used to detect UK benefits fraud

Person walks past a job centre in Borough, London
Claims for advances on universal credit payments are being examined by a biased AI system designed to detect fraud, it has emerged. Photograph: Mina Kim/Reuters

An artificial intelligence system used by the UK government to detect welfare fraud is showing bias according to people’s age, disability, marital status and nationality, the Guardian can reveal.

An internal assessment of a machine-learning programme used to vet thousands of claims for universal credit payments across England found it incorrectly selected people from some groups more than others when recommending whom to investigate for possible fraud.

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