Diskriminierung durch IT in der Berufsorientierung?

A recommendation system used by the Federal Employment Agency gave young people the following career advice: Choose computer science and nursing as professions! Was this advice always contrary to their vocational interests?

Fairness auditing of the web application ‘BERUFE Entdecker’ (online 2015–2021) exemplarily opens the black box of algorithmic, data-based governmental counselling in career guidance. It answers the question of what constitutes fair digital counselling tied to social legislation and when there is discrimination against users.

This study is the first to operationalise the issue of the risk of gender-specific discrimination through bias in the algorithm and/or in the data, thus providing a blueprint for further fairness audits by IT in digital career guidance.

Awarded the Science Prize of the RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau.