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UK Labour Party moans about tech company algorithms

by on19 December 2016


Wants them all monitored


The UK Labour Party, which is currently dragging itself kicking and screaming to the 1970s, is having an ill-informed rant about tech companies who use things called algorithms.

Labour’s industrial spokesperson Chi Onwurah wants these algorithms to all be transparent and subject to government regulation. Basically, it means that if a company use an algorithm it will have to be take it to a government department where it is an application will have be signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.

Onwurah is jolly worried that all these maths formulas control everything.
She said: “Algorithms aren’t above the law. The outcomes of algorithms are regulated – the companies which use them must meet employment law and competition law. The question is, how do we make that regulation effective when we can’t see the algorithm?”

Apparently, she is drawing up Labour’s industrial paper, due to be published after the Christmas break, will call for suggestions on how tech firms and these nasty algorithms could be more closely supervised by government.

“We expect algorithms and data rights to be considered as part of that consultation. Algorithms are part of our world, so they are subject to regulation, but because they are not transparent, it’s difficult to regulate them effectively.”

Algorithms are tricky things. Once they get into your house or computers system they are hard to get rid of even if you hit them with hammers. Still it is jolly nice that someone in Westminster knows what an algorithm is and wants to regulate them. We suggest arranging state housing for them.

Last modified on 19 December 2016
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