Bill Introduced to Regulate Forensic Algorithms

U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA 41) has introduced the "Justice in Forensic Algorithms Act of 2019." The Act would create federal standards for the development and use of forensic algorithms as well as prohibit the use of trade secrets privileges to prevent defense access to evidence in criminal proceedings. The Computational Forensic Algorithm Standards include considerations of bias, accuracy, precision, and reproducibility, and makes "publicly available documentation by developers of computational forensic software of the purpose and function of the software, the development process, including source and description of training data, and internal testing methodology and results, including source and description of testing data." Earlier this year, Iowa passed a law regarding pre-trial risk assessment algorithms. EPIC has advocated for Algorithmic Transparency across all applications and urges the use of the Universal Guidelines for Artificial Intelligence to guide AI regulation. A new publication from EPIC — the AI Policy Sourcebook — includes major policy frameworks for artificial intelligence.