Expanding Civil Rights to Combat Digital Discrimination on the Basis of Poverty

We live in a datafied society in which a vast network of public and private entities collect and combine our personal data. Algorithms sort these data troves and generate digital profiles that serve as gatekeepers to life’s necessities such as jobs, housing, health care, and education. Several scholars and civil rights organizations have highlighted the potential for algorithmic bias in these artificial intelligence systems, and examples of digital discrimination on the basis of race, gender, and other protected characteristics are ubiquitous. As a result, there are numerous legislative proposals and emerging litigation strategies for countering algorithmic bias. However, these civil rights initiatives leave out one group of Americans who are particularly vulnerable to digital discrimination – people experiencing poverty. Low-income people are suffering in the datafied society, while businesses amass large profits at their expense and governments digitally deny them social safety net benefits. This Article explores the harms poor people suffer from algorithms used in tenant screening, credit scoring, higher education admissions, and online advertising platforms. In light of these harms, this Article argues that existing and new laws prohibiting digital discrimination should include low socio-economic status as a protected characteristic. This legal reform would limit the digital harms low-income people suffer, enhance economic opportunity for millions of Americans, advance the fight for racial justice, and generate the data needed to improve anti-poverty policymaking