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Indirect discrimination

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The EU counterpart of disparate impact: an apparently neutral criterion that puts a protected group at a particular disadvantage, unlawful unless objectively justified by a legitimate aim pursued by appropriate and necessary means 1.

Developed in
ch. 20, Disparate treatment, disparate impact and proxies
Chapters
ch. 20, Existing Law
Contrast with
Disparate impact
Source
1 numbered reference, listed below

Where it is used

2 chapters of the Body of Knowledge use the term. Each link opens the first section that does.

Indirect discrimination: mentions per chapter5 mentions of the term across 2 of the 23 chapters of the Body of Knowledge; the chapters the glossary cross-references are drawn solid.Cross-referenced chapterOther chapter16 Fairness & XAI: 2 mentions16 Fairness & XAI220 Existing Law: 3 mentions20 Existing Law3No mentions in the other 21 chaptersSource: the Body of Knowledgev0.5.0
Indirect discrimination: mentions per chapter5 mentions of the term across 2 of the 23 chapters of the Body of Knowledge; the chapters the glossary cross-references are drawn solid.Cross-referenced chapterOther chapter00010203040506070810111213141516 Fairness & XAI: 2 mentions21617181920 Existing Law: 3 mentions320212223Source: the Body of Knowledge v0.5.0
Mentions per chapter How often each chapter names the term, with the chapters the glossary cross-references drawn solid. The longest bar is where to read the term in use; bars spread across many chapters mark a term that runs through the discipline.
Mentions as a table
Mentions of Indirect discrimination per chapter
ChapterMentionsCross-referenced
00 Preface0No
01 Definition0No
02 Why Now0No
03 Values & Principles0No
04 The Stack0No
05 Patterns0No
06 The Role0No
07 Maturity Model0No
08 Regulatory Map0No
10 Reading List0No
11 AI Defined0No
12 Governance Program0No
13 Risk Management0No
14 Development0No
15 Deployment0No
16 Fairness & XAI2No
17 Incidents0No
18 EU AI Act0No
19 Privacy & AI0No
20 Existing Law3Yes
21 AI Laws Worldwide0No
22 Principles & Standards0No
23 AI Agents0No
  • Disparate treatment

    Treating a person less favourably because of a protected characteristic such as race, sex or age, including through a feature or rule that deliberately stands…

Sources

  1. [1] Council Directive 2000/43/EC (Racial Equality Directive) (Art. 2(2)(a) direct and 2(2)(b) indirect discrimination, with objective justification). Official Journal of the EU (EUR-Lex). 2000-06-29. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2000/43/oj/eng (verified: primary)

Definitions of legal terms paraphrase the cited text, which governs. Dated statements are as of .

Cite this term

García Aibar, J. (2026). Indirect discrimination. In AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis & Body of Knowledge (v0.5.0), Glossary. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197. https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/indirect-discrimination. CC BY 4.0

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026indirectdiscrimination,
  author  = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title   = {{Indirect discrimination}},
  note    = {Glossary, AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis \& Body of Knowledge, version 0.5.0},
  year    = {2026},
  doi     = {10.5281/zenodo.22956197},
  url     = {https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/indirect-discrimination}
}