Investigating the Legality of Bias Mitigation Methods in the United Kingdom

Algorithmic Decision-Making Systems (ADMS)
1
fairness issues have been well highlighted over the past decade
[1]
, including some facial recognition systems struggling to identify people of color
[2]
. In 2021, Uber drivers filed a claim with the U.K. ’s employment tribunal for unfair dismissal resulting from automated facial recognition technology by Microsoft
[3]
.
Bias mitigation methods
have been developed to reduce discrimination from ADMS. These typically operationalize fairness notions as
fairness metrics
to minimize discrimination
[4]
. We refer to ADMS to which bias mitigation methods have been applied as “mitigated ADMS” or, in the singular, a “mitigated system.”