White House Outlines Consumer Protections for Banks’ AI-Based Programs

The White House has introduced a blueprint for a Bill of Rights for artificial intelligence (AI), which includes information for banks and other providers of financial services regarding the safeguarding of consumers’ digital data.

Goals conveyed by the Biden administration in the “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights” include information on the kinds of consumer protections businesses need to build into their AI-based programs. The framework also outlines the harms of algorithmic systems and how the public should be protected.

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The blueprint lays out six rights consumers should have as companies deploy AI: protection from unsafe or ineffective systems; no discrimination by algorithms; data privacy; notification when algorithmic systems are being used; the ability to opt-out; and access to customer service provided by human beings.

Alondra Nelson, deputy director for science and society at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said that the White House is looking for collaboration across all sectors “to really put equity at the center and civil rights at the center of the ways that we make and use and govern technologies.”

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The non-binding principles point to academic research, agency studies and news reports that have documented real-world harms from AI-powered tools. The federal government’s hands are tied, however, when it comes to the use of AI because most of the tech’s funding, development and adoption were due to state and local government adoption. 

“If a tool or an automated system is disproportionately harming a vulnerable community, there should be, one would hope, that there would be levers and opportunities to address that through some of the specific applications and prescriptive suggestions,” said Nelson.

The office said the blueprint advances the administration’s agenda to hold technology companies accountable and spotlights support by other federal agencies to consider the impact of AI.