Data, Lending, and Civil Rights

WPF Executive Director Pam Dixon will be speaking on data, lending, and civil rights at the Georgetown University Law Center this Wednesday. She will be discussing research from her Scoring of America report, co-authored with Robert Gellman, and she will be highlighting new research on the topic of economically vulnerable populations.

Event information:

Wednesday, April 8, 2015
Georgetown University Law Center
Gewirz Hall
120 F Street NW (12th Floor)
Washington, DC
1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. (Public session)

The Leadership Conference Education Fund, the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law, and Americans for Financial Reform, together with their partners, the Center for Democracy and Technology, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Open MIC, and Upturn, invite you to participate in a convening of civil rights, consumer and financial inclusion advocates, industry representatives, technologists, academics, and government officials to discuss the role of new forms of data in the future of lending.

Our consumer finance system has come a long way in eradicating many openly discriminatory tactics that have historically been used to shut communities of color out of the economic mainstream. Yet today, those communities still face significant obstacles in obtaining fair and affordable credit, savings, and checking products and services that are essential to financial stability.

Increasingly, critical financial decisions regarding pricing and eligibility are being made automatically by computers, and new data sources are driving more precise marketing. As a result, many conversations about civil rights are also becoming discussions about how computer systems work. Financial inclusion in a world of abundant data is a new frontier — one that we need to work to understand and address together.

Space is limited. To RSVP, and for more details, click here.

Posted April 6, 2015 in Consumer Privacy, Events and Conferences, Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), Financial Privacy

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