Virginia Eubanks is the author of "Automating Inequiality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor" and will be speaking at UK as part of the School of Information Science's "SIS Talks" series. 

Eubanks is an associate professor of political science at the University at Albany, State University of New York, an author and editor of three books, a founding member of the Our Data Bodies Project and a fellow at New America. In her new book, "Automating Inequality," Eubanks systematically investigates the impacts of data mining, policy algorithms and predictive risk models on poor and working-class people in America. She draws from personal experience and three detailed narratives to illustrate data-based discrimination in automated systems that are used by the government to deliver social services. Eubanks will discuss communication technologies that promise to streamline public services, for example, automated systems that gauge welfare eligibility and databases that connect the homeless with housing resources.