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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.

  • 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}
}