Predictive Analytics for Children

Together with Julia Keseru, and as part of a research project while I was at The Engine Room, I co-wrote a paper for UNICEF examining the potential ethical issues associated with predictive analytics as they pertain to children. We produced a long paper, and a shorter brief which summarises the main points.

I was amazed while working on this research how widespread predictive analytics already is; and second, how the term ‘predictive analytics’ (though relatively widely used in some industries) remains somewhat blurry. We tried in this paper to come up with a definition and a taxonomy to help assess and understand the impacts, looking at individual-focused predictive analytics, and population-level predictive analytics.