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Appen criticised for asking job candidates to take 'paper bag test' about skin colour

Appen, an Australian AI company, is accused of racism after asking job candidates to select their skin complexion as part of an online application. Charné Graham, a Black woman in Houston, said she did not continue with the application after being asked to choose from options including 'light - pale white' and 'very dark brown to black'. Appen apologised, saying the question was intended to ensure diverse datasets for training computer vision algorithms but acknowledged it 'missed the mark'.

Date it happened
2021-05-12
Organisation involved
Appen
Where this came from
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This incident was imported from smh.com.au. Our additions to it — the structured fields, the translation, the checks against other reports — are published under the same licence.

This is a record of what was reported, not a finding that anyone broke the law. If it names your organisation and you believe it is wrong, the corrections process is free and open to everyone.