🇫🇷 Yesterday, the French parliament passed a law authorizing algorithmic surveillance. The goal is to automatically detect "abnormal behavior". Abnormal behavior shall be defined at a later point by the government.

https://www.lemonde.fr/sport/article/2023/03/23/jo-2024-les-deputes-autorisent-la-videosurveillance-algorithmique-avant-pendant-et-apres-les-jeux_6166681_3242.html

🇳🇱 Lighthouse Reports just released an investigation of Rotterdam's welfare fraud detection algorithm.

https://www.lighthousereports.com/investigation/suspicion-machines/

The main finding may not surprise you (the system zeroes in on marginalized groups and it's not very good at its job). But the perfection of the execution will make this investigation a new milestone, a European version of what ProPublica did with COMPAS.

Oh sweet, my other #FOSDEM talk is online now.

Getting to a fossil free internet by 2030: A tour of the tech and policy changes to get us there

If you've ever thought about tech and sustainability, in 25mins, I've tried to share a model to help navigate this confusing space, point to some cool open projects, and give an overview of the policy and regulatory drivers at play influencing it.

Downloadable slides and the rest are in the link:

https://fosdem.org/2023/schedule/event/energy_fossil_free_internet/

#climateActionTech #greenweb

*work post*

We're working with UK funder Power to Change to develop a community of practice to support makers and users of community-powered tech. If you'd find it helpful to be part of that, please fill out this survey and tell us more about the help you need - whether it's with funding, contracts and HR , ways of working, or building and documenting the software you're making. Please share!

http://tiny.cc/CommTechSurvey