So to sum up, these are the three elements of a WMD: Opacity, Scale, and Damage.

They’re opaque, unquestioned, and unaccountable, and they operate at a scale to sort, target, or “optimize” millions of people.

crime prediction software made by PredPol, a Big Data start-up based

As I write this, ten states have passed legislation to outlaw the use of credit scores in hiring. In banning them, the New York City government declared that using credit checks “disproportionately affects low-income applicants and applicants of color.” Still, the practice remains legal in forty states.

The for-profit colleges do not bother targeting rich students. They and their parents know too much.

However, when you create a model from proxies, it is far simpler for people to game it. This is because proxies are easier to manipulate than the complicated reality they represent.

The victims rarely learn how they were chosen or how the recruiters came to know so much about them.

Consumer Federation of America,

Successful microtargeting, in part, explains why in 2015 more than 43 percent of Republicans, according to a survey, still believed the lie that President Obama is a Muslim.