The Washington Post - 12.11.2019

A22 EZ RE the washington post.tuesday, november 12 , 2019

BY TAYLOR TELFORD

What started with a viral Twit-

ter thread metastasized into a

regulatory investigation of Gold-

man Sachs’s credit card practic-

es after a prominent software

developer called attention to

differences in Apple Card credit

lines for male and female cus-

tomers.

David Heinemeier Hansson, a

Danish entrepreneur and devel-

oper, said in tweets last week

that his wife, Jamie Hansson,

was denied a credit line increase

for the Apple Card, despite hav-

ing a higher credit score than he

did.

“My wife and I filed joint tax

returns, live in a community-

property state, and have been

married for a long time. Ye t

Apple’s black box algorithm

thinks I deserve 20x the credit

limit she does,” Hansson tweet-

ed.

Hansson detailed the couple’s

efforts to bring up the issue with

Apple’s customer service, result-

ing in a formal internal com-

plaint. Representatives repeat-

edly assured the couple that

there was no discrimination,

citing the algorithm that makes

Apple Card’s c redit assessments.

Jamie Hansson’s credit limit

was ultimately bumped up to

equal her husband’s, but he said

this did not address the root of

the problem.

David Hansson’s tweets drew

the attention of Linda Lacewell,

superintendent of the New York

State Department of Financial

Services (DFS), who announced

Saturday that her office would

investigate the Apple Card algo-

rithm over claims of discrimina-

tion.

“This is not just about look-

ing into one algorithm,” she

wrote in a Medium post. “DFS

wants to work with the tech

community to make sure con-

sumers nationwide can have

confidence that the algorithms

that increasingly impact their

ability to access financial ser-

vices do not discriminate and

instead treat all individuals

equally and fairly.”

Apple didn’t immediately re-

spond to a request for comment

from The Washington Post.

“Women tend to be better

credit risks. While it is illegal to

discriminate, the data indicates

that, controlling for income and

other things, women are better

credit risks,” s aid Aaron Klein, a

Brookings Institution fellow.

“So giving men better terms of

credit is both illegal and seems

to be inconsistent with interna-

tional experience.”

With the spread of automa-

tion, more and more decisions

about our lives are made by

computers, from credit approval

to medical care to hiring choic-

es. The algorithms — formulas

for processing information or

completing tasks — that make

these judgments are pro-

grammed by people and thus

often reproduce human biases,

unintentionally or otherwise,

resulting in less-favorable out-

comes for women and people of

color. But the public, and even

companies themselves, often

have little visibility into how

algorithms operate.

Past iterations of Google

Translate struggled with gender

bias in translations. Amazon was

forced to jettison an experimen-

tal recruiting tool in 2017 that

used artificial intelligence to

score job candidates, because the

prevalence of male candidates

resulted in the algorithm penal-

izing résumés that included the

word “women’s” and downgrad-

ing candidates who attended

women’s colleges. A study pub-

lished last month in Science

found that racial bias in a widely

used health-care risk-prediction

algorithm made black patients

significantly less likely than

white patients to get important

medical treatment.

“It does not matter what the

intent of individual Apple reps

are, it matters what the algo-

rithm they’ve placed their com-

plete faith in does,” Hansson

tweeted. “A nd what it does is

discriminate.”

Dozens of people shared simi-

lar experiences after Hansson’s

tweets went viral, including Ap-

ple co-founder Steve Wozniak,

who indicated that his credit

limit is 10 times that of his wife.

The outcry prompted Goldman

Sachs to issue a response Sunday

stressing that credit assessments

are based on individual income

and creditworthiness, which

co uld result in family members

having “significantly different

credit decisions.”

“In all cases, we have not and

will not make decisions based

on factors like gender,” Andrew

Williams, a spokesman for

Goldman Sachs, said in a state-

ment.

Released in August through a

partnership with Goldman

Sachs, the Apple Card is a

“digital-first,” numberless credit

card “built on simplicity, trans-

parency and privacy,” according

to a news release.

[email protected]

Renae Merle contributed to this

report.

 More at washingtonpost.com/

business

Apple Card scrutinized for

alleged gender disparities

Critics say algorithm

results in lower

c redit limits for women

“It does not matter what the intent of individual

Apple reps are, it matters what the algorithm

they’ve placed their complete faith in does. And

what it does is discriminate.”

David Heinemeier Hansson, Danish entrepreneur and developer

Access local experiences at washingtonpost.com/my-post

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