lllinois ends 'unreliable' child abuse predictive system

A system used to identify children at risk from serious injury or death was dumped by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) after the agency’s director called the technology 'unreliable'.

The DCFS said it was suspending use of the Eckerd Rapid Safety Feedback (ERSF) programme as it 'didn’t seem to be predicting much.' According to the Chicago Tribune, the automated system was 'riddled' with data entry errors.

Eckerd Connects, the developer of the system, mined electronic DCFS files and assigned a score of 1 to 100 to children who were the subject of an abuse allegation. The algorithms rated the children’s risk of being killed or severely injured. 

Eckerd Connects acknowledged that it had over-claimed the system's capabilities. 

Research, advocacy 🧮

• ACLU. Family Surveillance by Algorithm (pdf) 

• Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic, Yale Law School (2022). ALGORITHMIC ACCOUNTABILITY: The Need for a New Approach to Transparency and Accountability When Government Functions Are Performed by Algorithms (pdf)

• Glaberson S.K. (2019). Coding Over the Cracks: Predictive Analytics and Child Protection

• Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities (2016). Within our reach. A National Strategy to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities (pdf)

News, commentary, analysis 🗞️

• https://apnews.com/article/de09af9fdc8843b8ab2dbcff513d261c

• https://www.chicagotribune.com/investigations/ct-dcfs-eckerd-met-20171206-story.html

• https://www.govtech.com/health/illinois-ends-child-abuse-prediction-program.html

• https://wgntv.com/news/wgn-investigates/123-children-died-within-a-year-of-dcfs-involvement-ig-study-finds/

• https://gizmodo.com/illinois-scraps-child-abuse-prediction-software-for-not-1821080730

• https://www.wcbu.org/state-news/2017-12-06/dcfs-ends-predictive-program

• https://herald-review.com/news/local/illinois-child-welfare-to-end-use-of-predictive-program/article_abdb1f5d-b850-5dd0-8865-87bc77ef420f.html

• https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/magazine/can-an-algorithm-tell-when-kids-are-in-danger.html