Apple Card being investigated by regulators for gender bias

Apple’s tech-oriented credit card is at the heart of a new investigation into alleged gender discrimination.

New York state regulators have announced an investigation into Goldman Sachs, the bank that issues the Apple Card, after a series of viral tweets from a consumer who shared the vastly different credit limits that were issued to him and his wife when they both applied for the card.

“The department will be conducting an investigation to determine whether New York law was violated and ensure all consumers are treated equally regardless of sex,” said a spokesman for the New York Department of Financial Services in a statement provided to Bloomberg.

On Thursday, David Heinemeier Hansson, a programmer who created the web application framework Ruby on Rails, posted a lengthy tweet thread explaining how both he and his wife applied for the Apple Card. Despite having the same financials, Hansson said his wife was issued a much smaller line of credit than he was.

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“My wife and I filed joint tax returns, live in a community-property state, and have been married for a long time,” Hansson tweeted. “Yet Apple’s black box algorithm thinks I deserve 20x the credit limit she does.”

After his complaints on Twitter, Hansson found his wife's Apple Card's credit limit was increased to match his.

However, Hansson’s frustration was not only with the credit line issue, but also how customer support is trained to handle the accusation of gender bias: blame the algorithm.

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"She spoke to two Apple reps. Both very nice, courteous people representing an utterly broken and reprehensible system,” he tweeted. “The first person was like “I don’t know why, but I swear we’re not discriminating, IT’S JUST THE ALGORITHM."

As everyone should know, computers are not sentient (yet). People created the algorithm, meaning any inherent bias was created by people.

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Hansson’s viral tweets sparked a discussion around credit card algorithms and gender bias with many other Apple Card holders sharing similar experiences, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

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“The same thing happened to us,” tweeted Wozniak. “I got 10x the credit limit. We have no separate bank or credit card accounts or any separate assets.”

“Any algorithm, that intentionally or not results in discriminatory treatment of women or any other protected class of people violates New York law,” said the New York Department of Financial Services spokesperson.

The Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs as the investment bank’s first credit card in its recent foray into consumer banking.