Readout of the Justice Department’s Interagency Convening on Advancing Equity in AI

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division on Wednesday convened principals of federal agency civil rights offices and senior government officials to foster AI and civil rights coordination.

This was the fourth such convening by the Civil Rights Division, coming up on the one-year anniversary of President Biden’s Executive Order on the Safe, Secure and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence (EO 14110), which tasks the Civil Rights Division with coordinating federal agencies to use our authorities to prevent and address unlawful discrimination and other harms that may result from the use of AI in programs and benefits, while preserving the potential social, medical and other advances AI may spur.

The convening highlighted a recent Justice Department symposium on AI focusing on combating technology-enabled crime — including crime facilitated by AI. The Civil Rights Division’s Chief Technologist presented remarks at the symposium, and the event included discussion of the department’s role in negotiating the first international agreement providing a shared baseline for using AI in a way that is consistent with respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

To strengthen the division’s efforts to ensure equity in AI, the Civil Rights Division recently retained a Chief Technologist, Dr. Laura Edelson. She is helping to systematically expand the division’s AI enforcement capacity and to increase the efficiency of its operations by harnessing technological modernization.

At the convening, agency technologists and researchers, including Dr. Edelson, discussed the role of auditing in preventing, investigating, monitoring, and remedying algorithmic bias. Auditing is used to verify that algorithms generate accurate results, as opposed to reflecting historical bias against protected classes.

Agencies discussed their efforts to safeguard civil rights through robust enforcement, policy initiatives, rulemaking and ongoing education and outreach. These accomplishments include:

• A Federal Trade Commission report finding that large social media and video streaming companies engaged in vast surveillance of their users, including kids and teens, with insufficient privacy controls;
• An Equal Employment Opportunity Commission report highlighting barriers to equal opportunity in the high tech workforce and sector and calling for concerted efforts to address discriminatory barriers;
• A Department of Labor (DOL) sponsored resource to help employers consider disability inclusion and accessibility in AI hiring technologies; and
• A Department of Education guide that reminds developers who design for education with AI that they share responsibility with educators for advancing equity and protecting students’ civil rights.

The interagency convening's attendees included representatives from the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Interior, Labor, Transportation and Treasury, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Federal Trade Commission and Social Security Administration. Director Naomi Barry-Perez of the DOL’s Civil Rights Center and Department of Transportation Civil Rights Director Irene Marion were in attendance to provide updates for their agencies.

All participants pledged to continue collaboration to protect the American public against any harm that might result from the increased use and reliance on AI, algorithms and other advanced technologies. The agencies also agreed to partner on external stakeholder engagement around their collective efforts to advance equity and civil rights in AI.

For more information, see the Civil Rights Division’s webpage, which centralizes content related to the division’s work on AI and civil rights. This resource provides information about how advanced technologies can result in unlawful discrimination and what the division can do to assist victims of discrimination. The webpage also includes key resources on AI and civil rights from enforcement agencies throughout the federal government.