Events over recent weeks have been unprecedented. At Yoti, we have been inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and wholeheartedly support calls for the end of inequality and exclusion wherever it exists and in whatever form it takes.
Racial equality is very much an issue of identity, and being a digital identity company the issues at hand are more pertinent to us than for many other companies. As signatories of the Safe Face Pledge, we have made a public commitment addressing harmful bias in artificial intelligence technology and embedded transparency into our business practices.
Today, we are releasing a paper which looks at our own successes and shortcomings, in addition to a wider assessment of social purpose in the corporate world during these challenging times.
More specifically, the paper examines the emergence of social purpose in the corporate world, how businesses define their missions and visions, and how companies have responded to two of the greatest events of recent times – the Coronavirus pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests. An extensive list of examples of responses from companies can be found in the appendix.
You can download a copy of Social Purpose in a Time of Crisis here.
As a company, we have made some progress on diversity and inclusion, but it’s clear we need to do a lot more. Today, we reaffirm our commitment to accelerating the work we have already started.
As CEO of Yoti, I am proud of our achievements over the years that have seen us build genuine social purpose into our business. As a B Corp, we meet detailed standards of performance which are benchmarked globally and our Guardian Council play an active role in ensuring our business and products serve everybody. We’re committed to eliminating bias from our biometric technology and take a transparent approach to publishing the accuracy results across skin tone and gender.
All that said, the Black Lives Matter protests have forced businesses around the world to look more closely at their own records and despite what we have achieved, our own period of reflection has shown that we have fallen short in a number of areas. As CEO I am committed to putting these right, and today we make a statement of intent towards that goal.