by Joseph A. Gill and Tyler K. Gray - McKercher LLP

In a previous life, I sat in on a data governance meeting as a consultant. During the conversation, the team was discussing an automated decision-making process where one of the pieces of information collected was an individual’s age. Where an individual was under a certain age, they were disqualified and pre-screened out of using a product. Then, one of the team members spoke up and raised a concern about using this automated decision factor, and even whether we should collect this information at all. The team member stated that age alone was not helpful to the company in qualifying or disqualifying the potential customer and may even discriminate against otherwise excellent potential customers. The conversation raised a serious question about the true value of the information to the company’s product delivery. It also raised a question about whether use of that information could be justified if reliance on it to deny access to the product was brought to light.