The ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S) is a cross-disciplinary, national research centre, which brings together universities, industry, government and the community to support the development of responsible, ethical and inclusive automated decision-making. Funded by the Australian Research Council from 2020 to 2027, the Centre brings together leading researchers in the humanities, social and technological sciences in an international industry, research and civil society network.

 Our Centre aims to contribute to the mitigation of the social and economic risks in the development and implementation of ADM, and to improve outcomes and efficiencies in four key focus areas where automation is already well advanced: news and media, transport and mobility, health care, and social services.

Improving digital inclusion outcomes and access to services in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities is critically important for informed decision making and agency. People living in Australia’s 1100 remote Indigenous communities are likely to be among the most digitally excluded Australians. The Australian Digital Inclusion Index (ADII) found that people in remote communities often have extremely limited access to digital infrastructure and services and encounter very high costs for internet access, especially in relation to their income.

The Mapping the Digital Gap project is a four-year research project conducted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society in partnership with Telstra. Working with 10-12 remote First Nations communities over three years, this project will:

Generate a detailed account of the distribution of digital inclusion across Indigenous communities;

Research sites have been identified based on criteria to ensure a diverse national sample, and the research team is working closely with local and regional agencies on all community-based research and the analysis of results to ensure the project adheres to local policies and cultural protocols, community trust and engagement, and to ensure the research addresses local needs and provides benefit to the community.

The data collected through the Mapping the Digital Gap project will enable comparison with national results collected for the ADII. This will enable measurement and tracking of the scale of the digital gap for remote First Nations communities. With a new Closing the Gap target of equal levels of digital inclusion for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people by 2026, this project aims to provide data to inform policy and programs to help close the digital gap.

Project website: More about the Mapping the Digital Gap project including researchers
Videos:  Mapping the Digital Gap in Erub and Mapping the Digital Gap in Wilcannia
Report: Mapping the Digital Gap: Wilcannia, NSW community outcomes report (apo.org.au)
ADM+S Podcast: Listen to the podcast: Mapping the Digital Gap
Facebook: Follow the Mapping the Digital Gap project on Facebook
Updates: Subscribe for project updates

The Australian Digital Inclusion Index uses survey data to measure digital inclusion across three dimensions of Access, Affordability and Digital Ability. We explore how these dimensions vary across the country and across different social groups.

Website: The Australian Digital Inclusion Index

The use of custom targeted advertising, known as ‘dark ads’ poses a host of potential social harms, from the re-introduction of historical forms of discriminating (targeting job or housing ads by race, for example, or job ads by race or gender, and so on); to the propagation of racist or gender stereotyping, to the spread of false and harmful information. The advertising environment is fundamentally transformed by the rise of dark ads, which continue the trend away from mass advertising, which was available to large audiences and thus subject to public scrutiny.

Our researchers have partnered with AlgorithmWatch to develop novel approaches for addressing the challenges posed by ‘dark ads’. This project aims to develop strategies for addressing the potential harms posed by ‘dark ads’ and provide accountability and transparency mechanisms for targeted advertising. This project will deliver modelling of real-world strategies for providing visibility into how targeting takes place and what its results are and develop recommendations for regulatory response to online ad targeting.

Project website: More about the Australian Ad Observatory project including researchers
Video: The Australian Ad Observatory
Report: The Australian Ad Observatory: Background paper
Join the project: Join the Australian Ad Observatory project as a citizen scientist
Free public event: Register to attend the Dark Ads Public Panel event 28 September, Kaleide Theatre, Melbourne