Speeches by Onwurah.

“One of the things that my Committee called for was greater transparency and access to the algorithm. Finally, do you accept that if there were political bias in X’s algorithm, that would represent support for a political party or a political movement, which would be an interference in our electoral process?”

“Pay per use? You have to pay for it?”

“I have two quick follow-up questions. I think it is unrealistic to expect that hundreds of millions of individuals will all try to reverse-engineer the algorithm to rid it of whatever biases may be there. Do you test for bias, and is it possible for others—outside parties, researchers and so on—to have APIs into the al…”

“Do you test for political bias?”

“I understand that, but do you test to see if someone is more likely to receive content from certain political parties or origins and so on. Do you do any testing like that for bias?”

“You said that you have published some of the code around your algorithm. Do you test the algorithm to see if there is potential bias in the ranking of content?”

“Not one who was willing to speak to us.”

“The 5% could be significant. Okay, thank you very much. Dr Fernández.”

“That all takes time.”

“The involvement is that you are leading it.”

“Thank you, that is very helpful. You also said that the Cabinet Office was involved in the policy for digital ID across Government. My understanding was that you were leading on it.”

“I just wanted to clarify that. There is no burden on the employee to do it digitally.”

“So does that mean that the individual has to have some kind of digital ID, or can they use their passport—existing documentation?”

“By the employer.”

“No. That is right. Currently, it is mandatory for employers to check the right to work digitally, but the individual does not have a duty to prove anything digitally.”

“Right. That was a digital transformation of one existing system in one Department. You are rolling digital ID across all Departments.”

“Thank you very much, Chair. It is a great pleasure to have you here, Chief Secretary and Minister. I have two quick questions or points of clarification. I think, Chief Secretary, you said that it was currently mandatory for people to prove their right to work digitally.”

“I am struck by the fact that you identified the passport as the example of excellence, rather than a digital system for what is going to be a digital transformation. We have heard about some of the challenges experienced in the public sector. Is there an example of a digital transformation or service across this Govern…”

“By Government, do you mean the Cabinet Office?”

“That is very helpful, Chief Secretary. The services to be onboarded will not only be national Government services; they might be local government services as well. How will you decide or who will decide what services come on board?”