Built-In Bias: Apple has made news with their release of the Apple Card, representative of a recent trend of big tech companies expanding their reach into finance and banking. However, the flurry of news around the release was not quite what they were hoping for, as reports of possible gender bias surrounding the card have come to light. David Heinemeier Hansson, the developer of Ruby on Rails and a strong influence in the tech industry, announced on Twitter that he was approved with a credit limit 20 times as high as what his wife received. This is despite his wife having a better credit score and the two of them filing joint tax returns.
Algorithms that discriminate against women continue to appear on the market
Another critic of the Apple Card was cofounder of Apple himself, Steve Wozniak. He was issued a credit limit 10 times that of his wife’s, who also has no separate accounts or assets from him. Several Twitter users responded with similar situations, as many women are being perceived as worse credit risks than their husbands, even with their higher incomes and credit scores. This problem seems like it should be an anomaly. After all, an algorithm decides the credit limit issued, not a human with gender bias, so this shouldn’t be happening, right?
