An investigation into the alleged “sexist” Apple Card has concluded with New York’s Department of Financial Services saying Tuesday that it has found no evidence of unlawful discrimination.
The investigation was launched in late 2019. Laws stop algorithms from determining treatment based on things like age, creed, race, color, sex, sexual orientation, and more.
The investigation started when entrepreneur David Heinemeier Hansson tweeted that he had received 20x the credit limit of his wife. He noted that he and his wife filed joint tax returns. Things got even more damning when Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak made a similar observation.
As a former senior Apple employee, this @applecard issue is very disappointing to me. I feel betrayed. Apple is positioned as the good team in tech. And I believe they are. But this is an issue that they have to fix. They have to think different and be better.
— Dave Edwards (@dedwards93) November 9, 2019
Woz said that he received 10x more credit on the card than his wife. “We have no separate bank or credit card accounts or any separate assets,” Wozniak noted. “Hard to get to a human for a correction though. It’s big tech in 2019.”
However, the Department of Financial Services says it found no evidence of gender bias. Its investigation of Apple Card focused on both Apple and card underwriter Goldman Sachs. It reviewed “thousands” of pages of records from both Goldman and Apple. The investigation also involved interviews with multiple Apple Card customers, plus data for approximately 400,000 Apple Card applicants from New York State.
Are you an Apple Card customer? Have you experienced anything like this? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Reuters
