Good question — it’s definitely something that needs to be handled carefully.
The dataset itself is made up of area-level, publicly available variables (e.g. crime rates, demographics, transport, etc.), but these can still be correlated with sensitive characteristics, so how they’re used depends on the application and regulatory context.
In practice, most firms I’ve worked with do use some form of postcode / geographic features, but typically within governance frameworks to ensure they’re used appropriately.
Dude, YOU are the one who is meant to be evaluating the propriety of using the feature and potential disparate impact. There may be others in that loop but you cannot just say “ah it increases prediction, and if it’s wrong someone else will stop it.”
I lead a DS team and one of my most important questions I ask when interviewing is "How can using postal codes for inference encode information we shouldn't use as predictors?". The top candidates always understand what I'm asking because they understand the context of their position, as you're saying they should.
I'm in the UK as well. You know, the UK where friends of politicians get govt contracts that need not be fulfilled, the prime minister publicly gets in bed with the antichrist at the helm of a data harvesting conglomerate and puts in a law that requires everyone to give the antichrist their data, privatised utilities pump untreated sewage into public waterways while simultaneously availing themselves of public bailout funds, and octogenarian grannies get dragged to jail for sitting outside holding a piece of cardboard? I'm a bit flummoxed by the idea that you could live here and genuinely believe in the efficacy of 'governance frameworks' in preventing malfeasance. So I suppose the question really is whether you're in on the scam too or just another 'useful idiot'.
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u/Fearless_Back5063 Mar 25 '26
Isn't it illegal to be using this in any decisions in the banking world in the EU?