Combating discrimination through digital technology?

Since the early 2010s, four major laws have been passed in France to reform social housing allocation policies. All of them encourage social housing providers to use digital tools to improve the information available to applicants and fight against discrimination. These incentives for transparency have led to a proliferation of local experiments. Several cities have opted for applicant scoring, which aims to automatically rank applications according to a predefined weighting system. Initially implemented on a voluntary basis by local authorities, scoring was then made mandatory by the ÉLAN law of 2018. Based on two surveys combining interviews, observations and documentary analysis, this article shows that scoring has not reduced the risk of discrimination. This policy failure can be explained by national and local mechanisms. At national level, the content of the law is largely compromised by the mobilization of the dominant players in allocation policy. To make the reform more acceptable to municipalities and landlords, the legislator introduced a series of provisions that considerably weakened the scope of the law. At local level, the scoring system was implemented quickly and smoothly, but extensive criticism led to its neutralization. While allocation practices have remained the same, there are some changes underway in the power relations between local actors, notably the strengthening of the position of inter-municipal cooperation.