Dr Mark Wong and Dr Aunam Quyoum
140 Ofcom civil servants and policymakers attended a talk given by Dr. Mark Wong and Research Associate, Dr. Aunam Quyoum, both at University of Glasgow and part of the PRIME project. The talk was part of the Ofcom internal/academic seminar series. Their presentation introduced how our multi-institutional PRIME project examines online harms and bias of AI and data systems on Minoritised Ethnic people in digital health, housing, and energy services in the UK. Wong and Quyoum discussed the impact and potential inequalities arising from digitisation (such as use of data and algorithmic decision-making). We also discussed the potential of co-design approach to develop fair and inclusive AI & digital tools with Minoritised Ethnic communities and multi-stakeholders to mitigate discriminatory bias. The talk sparked questions and lively discussions in the form of Q&A and messages in Teams. There were also individual follow-ups from Ofcom staff who were interested to learn more about the findings of the project and collaborate in the future. We were invited to present about our project findings in the future, and Ofcom indicated interests in collaborations and will reach out when academic expertise is required, such as by their online safety team, taking charge of the implementation of the Online Safety Bill, who were present at the talk.
