Apple Faces Fresh Sexist Accusations Over Its Credit Card Algorithm

The issue of discrimination was first brought up by tech entrepreneur and programmer David Heinemeier Hansson, who said his wife got smaller credit limits than he did, even though they both have similar financial statuses.

The @AppleCard is such a fucking sexist program. My wife and I filed joint tax returns, live in a community-property state, and have been married for a long time. Yet Apple’s black box algorithm thinks I deserve 20x the credit limit she does. No appeals work.

— DHH (@dhh) November 7, 2019

Sex-Based Discrepancies in Credit Limits

According to Hansson, his wife has a higher credit score than he does, so it doesn’t add up how he ends up with more credit limits than she does. He added that she is a citizen of the United States, while he is an immigrant (he’s Danish). The issue sparked a bit of a controversy, but given that one person had raised the issue, it was expected that the problem would blow over. Sadly, this isn’t the case. According to a report from finance news source Bloomberg, Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, had asked for an inquiry into the underlying algorithm of the Apple Card, arguing that the company seems to be overly reliant on what he termed “mysterious technology.” “These sorts of unfairnesses bother me and go against the principle of truth. We don’t have transparency on how these companies set these things up and operate. Our government isn’t strong enough on the issues of regulation. Consumers can only be represented by the government because the big corporations only represent themselves,” he told Bloomberg.

Apple’s Co-Founder Has a Similar Story

In his reply to Hansson, Wozniak also added that even though he shares account and credit card information with his wife and they are treated fairly by other lenders, the discrepancy with their ability to lend on the Apple Card is rather wide. As Bloomberg notes, he can borrow up to 10 times as much as his wife.

The same thing happened to us. I got 10x the credit limit. We have no separate bank or credit card accounts or any separate assets. Hard to get to a human for a correction though. It's big tech in 2019.

— Steve Wozniak (@stevewoz) November 10, 2019

As Bloomberg notes, a representative of Goldman Sachs refuted the claims of sexual discrimination, adding that the company will never consider any prohibited bases when making credit decisions. “Our credit decisions are based on a customer’s creditworthiness and not on factors like gender, race, age, sexual orientation or any other basis prohibited by law,” the spokesperson added. However, as many have pointed out, the presence of anti-discrimination policies doesn’t particularly mean that algorithms can’t discriminate.

UnitedHealth Gets Roped into a Discrimination Case

It’s not unheard of for providers to use discriminatory procedures to serve their users. A similar case occurred last month when the NYSDFS and the New York Department of Health opened investigations into an algorithm used by insurance provider UnitedHealth Group Inc., based on accusations that it was discriminating between customers. Per a report from the Wall Street Journal at the time, a previous study has found that the algorithm was favoring care for healthier white patients over sicker patients of color, and both regulators had sent the company a letter, asking them to either stop using the algorithm or prove that it wasn’t discriminatory on any grounds. Do you think the Apple Card is discriminatory towards women? Have you had any experience of such in the past? Let us know in the comments.

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