What is Proxy Discrimination?
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The near universal condemnation of proxy discrimination hides a disagreement over what it is. This work surveys various notions of proxy and proxy discrimination found in prior work and represents them in a common framework. These notions variously turn on statistical dependencies, causal effects, and intentions. It discusses the limitations and uses of each notation and of the concept as a whole.
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One can formulate DAGs representing causal relations such that properties P2 or P5 are satisfied.
“Nonetheless, one can formulate Directed Acyclical Graphs (DAG) representing causal relations such that, e.g. properties P2 or P5 are satisfied -for causal perspectives on proxy discrimination see Iturria et al. (2024), Côté et al. (2025), Tschantz (2022).”
From Sensitivity-based measures of discrimination in insurance pricing (2026) · cites this paper as Tschantz (2022)
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Cited by
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Sensitivity-based measures of discrimination in insurance pricing
Lindholm, M., Richman, R., Tsanakas, A., & Wüthrich, M. V. (2026) · European Journal of Operational Research · doi:10.1016/j.ejor.2026.01.021 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
- Authors
- Tschantz, M. C.
- Affiliations
- International Computer Science Institute (US)
- Corresponding author
- Tschantz, Michael Carl
- Venue
- 2022 ACM Conference on Fairness Accountability and Transparency
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2022-06-20
- Pages
- 1993-2003
- OpenAlex
- W4283160208
- Cited by
- 25
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 5.71
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (cc-by)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (1704985)
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (FA8750-15-2-0277)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
- Social Sciences › Law › Discrimination and Equality Law
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)
- Keywords
- proxy discrimination, algorithmic fairness, statistical dependence, causal effects, intention
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