Tres Publique: Algorithms in the French Welfare State w/ Soizic Pénicaud
Governments around the world are using predictive systems to manage engagement with even the most vulnerable. Results are mixed.
Luckily people like Soizic Pénicaud are working to prevent the modern welfare state from becoming a web of punishment of the most marginalised. Soizic has worked on algorithmic transparency both in and outside of a government context, and this week will share her journey from working on incrementally improving these systems (boring, ineffective, hard) — to escaping the slow pace of government and looking at the bigger picture of algorithmic governance, and how it can build better public benefit in France (fun, transformative, and a good challenge).
Soizic is working to shift political debates about opaque decision-making algorithms to focus on what they’re really about: the marginalised communities who’s lives are most effected by these systems.
Further reading & resources:
- The Observatory of Public Algorithms and their Inventory
- The ongoing court case against the French welfare agency's risk-scoring algorithm
- More about Soizic
- More on the Transparency of Public Algorithms roadmap from Etalab — the task force Soizic was part of
- La Quadrature du Net
- France’s Digital Inquisition — co-authored by Soizic in collaboration with Lighthouse Reports, 2023
- AI prototypes for UK welfare system dropped as officials lament ‘false starts’ — The Guardian Jan 2025
- Learning from Cancelled Systems by Data Justice Lab
- The Fall of an Algorithm: Characterizing the Dynamics Toward Abandonment — by Nari Johnson et al, featured in FAccT 2024
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