STORY: "The top 10 legal tech stories of 2017," by ABA Legal Affairs Writer Jason Tashea, published by The American Bar Association Journal on December 22, 2017.
GIST: All ten legal tech stories are significant - and worth a read. The one which is of particular interest to the readers of this Blog runs under the heading, 'A court-ordered glimpse into a black box," as follows: In October, in a rare win for algorithmic transparency advocates, a
federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of
New York, required the unmasking
of an algorithm used in genotyping—a type of DNA comparison—called the
Forensic Statistical Tool. While the judge had already allowed the
defense to analyze the tool under a protective order, journalists at
ProPublica filed a motion arguing there was public interest in the code.
The tool’s code is now posted online. Before getting too excited about the onslaught of court-ordered
open-sourced algorithms, it should be noted that FST was created and
operated by the state of New York and had stopped being used in new
investigations earlier in the year, giving this case a unique fact
pattern and not making it the easiest cognate with many privately held
and black-box algorithms being used by government agencies."
The entire article can be found at:
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/the_top_10_legal_tech_stories_of_2017
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/c
