What would you do if you were suddenly cut off from all your bank accounts? You can’t pay for anything, you can’t get paid and you can’t really get answers as to why it happened. 

And how would you feel if you found out that the decision to cut you off from your money was in part made by an algorithm?

Banks have no choice, they have to use automated systems to monitor their transactions and customers. But sometimes, those systems go wrong leading to people’s bank accounts being blocked or closed. 

And that is happening to a lot of people around the world: small business owners, NGOs, religious organisations, migrants, political refugees... Even politicians. There could be thousands of victims. When it happens, they face an administrative inferno and very practical issues like not being able to pay their bills. This phenomenon is called de-banking and data shows it is on the rise. 

It can happen through a semi-automated decision-making process involving algorithms. When mistakes are made by these systems, they are called “false positives”. In this podcast, co-produced by Agence France-Presse, and Algorithm Watch, we’ll talk to those who battled to have mistakes overturned, and industry insiders who’ll lift the lid on how and why this is happening.

Host : Alex Cadier

Editing by Camille Kauffmann

Music is by Nicolas Vair

Reporting and research by Pablo Jimenez Arandia, Naiara Bellio, Nicolas Kayser-Bril Yasir Gökce, Mayra Russo, Mathilde Saliou for Algorithm Watch; Benoît Pelegrin, Burcin Gercek and Michaëla Cancela-Kieffer for AFP.

Translations : 

Natalie Handel, Joshua Melvin, Jean-Marc Mojon, Gregory Viscusi, Chris Wright, Joseph Schmid, Phillip Hazlewood 

Editors in chiefs: Naiara Bellio, for AlgorithmWatch and Michaëla Cancela-Kieffer for Agence France-Presse. 

This podcast was based on a six month investigation conducted in the framework of the AlgorithmWatch Algorithmic Accountability Reporting fellowship. AlgorithmWatch is a non-profit organization based in Berlin and Zurich that fights to ensure that use of algorithms and Artificial Intelligence benefits the many, not just the few. Agence France-Presse, a leading global news agency present in 150 countries, contributed with additional research and fact-checking in the UK, France and Turkey, as well as the production of the podcast. 

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