On September 2020, the cities of Amsterdam and Helsinki launched the Algorithm and AI Register, which is an “overview of the artificial intelligence systems and algorithms used by the City”. On September 28th, Touria Meliani, Alderman of Amsterdam, tweeted:
“News! Amsterdam and Helsinki launch the world’s first algorithm register. Algorithms are increasingly important to our city and we believe everyone has the right to know which ones we use and how they work”.
@touriameliani, traduction by author
The register will grant citizens a better understanding of “why and how algorithms are being used, and who is affected, […] what data is being used, how it’s processed, how discrimination is prevented, the degree of human oversight and how risks are handled”.
On the Helsinki’s AI register, one can get information on the five algorithms used by the City of Helsinki:
- Parking chatbot
- Maternity clinic chatbot NeRo
- Health center chatbot
- Oddi’s book recommendation service Obotti (chatbot)
- Intelligent material management system (for the City’s library collection).
On the Amsterdam’s algorithm register, one can get information to three algorithms used by the City of Amsterdam:
- Automated parking control
- Holiday rental housing fraud risk
- Reporting issues in public space (gestion of complaints)
However, the Amsterdam’s algorithm register is still a beta version, and consequently, “at this moment the register is still under development and does not yet contain all the algorithms that the City of Amsterdam uses. We are hard at work to register all algorithms we use in the nearby future”.
Sources: https://ai.hel.fi/en/get-to-know-ai-register/
https://algoritmeregister.amsterdam.nl/en/ai-register/
Katia B.
