Reassessing privacy, fairness and governance in the age of algorithms and the impact on society and institutions

While algorithms will play a central role in the future of business and society, there is a lack of awareness of the grave implications to fundamental human values and to institutions that are built around these values. Algorithms have already rendered the present framework of law and governance outdated. While new technologies have historically roiled societies with the privacy conundrum at times of great change, the ability to gather, analyse, and combine vast quantities of data from different sources using powerful algorithms, impose a significant challenge to the traditional notion of privacy and fairness, as never seen before. This paper elucidates the concepts of data and algorithms along with our current notions of privacy and fairness. It explores the multi-dimensional algorithmic challenges to our present notion of privacy and fairness and to institutions to which privacy and fairness are at their core. It also deliberates on safeguards and remedial actions being considered at present.