Dataharvest 2026 - the European Investigative Journalism Conference

Algorithms are everywhere, but they're still extremely opaque. They affect us more and more, and often have a meaningful impact on our daily lives—especially when the public administration uses them. But it's incredibly hard to 1) get data and information about how they work, 2) understand it, and 3) explain it in a simple, impactful way.

In this session, we'll share different techniques that Civio has used to research and report on algorithms. We'll look into the ways in which one can crack open the black box of algorithms, from FOIA requests to court battles, reverse engineering to scientific reports. We will also explain how we analyse their outputs and how we make reporting that is often technical and complex more palatable for our readers. In the presentation, we will mention some particular examples from our reporting on algorithms, such as exposing facial recognition in doctor offices, algorithm bias when it comes to cancer detection, and a silly lie detector used by police.

We'll also talk about how we went to the Supreme Court to get the code of a system which decides -wrongly- who receives subsidies, and who doesn't. This session is suitable for beginners - you don't need to have had any experience reporting on algorithms in order to attend and follow the session.