Having given expert evidence on the risks of using data proxies for bias monitoring at a workshop hosted by the Centre for Data and Ethics Innovation (CDEI) at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport. Dr Luc Rocher shares their insights.

Booking tickets online usually follows a standard and well-honed procedure. Not in Belgium.

In Belgium, we send letters. Every year though, the market for postal letters decreases by about 5%. Post offices close. Mail boxes disappear. So when we need to send a letter, we might not know exactly where to post it. For Hack Belgium, we decided to tackle this problem.

I still remember this cold morning of May 2011, 8am, reading over and over these words: “Le Mal semble saisissable, mais c’est dans la mesure où le Bien en est la clé. Si l’intensité lumineuse du Bien ne donnait sa noirceur à la nuit du Mal, le Mal n’aurait plus son attrait. Cette vérité est difficile. Quelque chose se cabre en celui qui l’entend.”

Chaque matin, il y a ceux qui vont se coucher lessivés, ceux qui balaient des rues désertes, ceux qui pissent le sang à l’autre bout du monde ou sous nos fenêtres, ceux qui le donnent de bon cœur par poches bien remplies, ceux qui gesticulent et ceux qui se taisent, ceux qui avalent un café fade comme hier en pensant à demain. C’est cocasse l’être humain, non ?

Sometimes, you find yourself drinking hot tea with lime at midnight and watching the sun for hours over the sea, resting on a steep summit, surrounded by snowy rocks and vicious cold wind. That day, you know you are in Norway.

My watch indicates 10pm and I am still walking, wrapped in my rain jacket. I start to know the terrain and anticipates the next steps, either on melting snow fields or swamps. Armies of tiny bushes often raise from the swamp, letting me find a way around or try desperately to fight them. I am surrounded by vicious mosquitoes, maybe 100 or 200 around me when I stop.