Test your tolerance
We all set criteria for suspicion. Now a website helps you decide if you display unconscious prejudice.
How accurate it is, or how far the choice of tests itself demonstrates bias, is not clear but the tests at tolerance.org, run by The Southern Poverty Law Centre, are fascinating. Its website is perhaps somewhat liberal for some, especially those for whom what the website sees as prejudice is what others see as a religious belief but in general provides an interesting look at our own views of various groups who are different from our own.
Various studies have shown, for example, that fat people are widely regarded as a bit dim, and therefore find it harder to get high level jobs. And intolerance based on religion or skin colour is more widespread than we would like to imagine. You can test your attitudes with on-line testing (free) at www.tolerance.org.
The question of prejudice is valuable in relation to money laundering detection and prevention. For example, where a person working in a bank pre-supposes that blacks are predominantly poor, then a wealthy black may be regarded with undue suspicion.
The application of prejudice to the making of rules for monitoring is a significant issue: for example, postcode profiling is an example of prejudice, as is defining risk on the basis of name.
The FATF NCCT programme, for example, creates a form of prejudice based on nationality and origin, although that is clearly not its purpose.
For those defining rules for a variety of risk management situations, prejudice is a live issue, and one which needs careful consideration.
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