Description: US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)’s ATLAS software used in vetting immigration requests was condemned by advocacy groups as a threat to naturalized citizens for its secretive algorithmic decision-making, reliance on poor quality data and unknown sources, and alleged discrimination of immigrants using biometric and sensitive information.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: US Citizenship and Immigration Services developed an AI system deployed by US Department of Homeland Security and US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which harmed US naturalized citizens , US immigrants , US citizenship applicants and US immigration applicants.
Risk Subdomain
A further 23 subdomains create an accessible and understandable classification of hazards and harms associated with AI
1.1. Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation
Risk Domain
The Domain Taxonomy of AI Risks classifies risks into seven AI risk domains: (1) Discrimination & toxicity, (2) Privacy & security, (3) Misinformation, (4) Malicious actors & misuse, (5) Human-computer interaction, (6) Socioeconomic & environmental harms, and (7) AI system safety, failures & limitations.
- Discrimination and Toxicity
Entity
Which, if any, entity is presented as the main cause of the risk
Human
Timing
The stage in the AI lifecycle at which the risk is presented as occurring
Post-deployment
Intent
Whether the risk is presented as occurring as an expected or unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
Intentional
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline

Software used by the Department of Homeland Security to scan the records of millions of immigrants can automatically flag naturalized Americans to potentially have their citizenship revoked based on secret criteria, according to documents r…

U.S. citizens can be kicked out of the country based on the findings of a secret algorithm. The Department of Homeland Security is using an Amazon-hosted system called ATLAS that analyzes millions of records and can be used to automatically…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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