Rome, 23 May 2025
Commitment to digital equity, transparency and accountability, standards and guidelines, equity by design & by default, promotion and sharing, scientific support, verification and correction, training, inclusion and dialogue, monitoring and transparency, feedback and continuous improvement. These are the 10 points of the 'Manifesto for Digital Equity', signed by the Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane Group, Digital Angels, Federmanager, Federmanager Minerva, Fondazione Magna Grecia, GPI, Bari Polytechnic, Calabria Region, Unindustria Calabria, University of Calabria and University of Roma Tre.
The document was presented by Antonio Marziale, Garante per l'infanzia e l'adolescenza of the Calabria Region, during the event 'For digital equity: countering gender bias in the processing of personal data'. A two-day event organised by the Italian Data Protection Authority, with the support and collaboration of FS Group, at the Cittadella Regionale in Catanzaro.
With the Manifesto, all signatories pledge to ensure and promote digital equity at all stages of the design, development, implementation and use of artificial intelligence (AI)-based solutions, and to create and maintain inclusive processes and working environments within them.
The research on the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in personnel recruitment processes, carried out by the Department of Mechanical, Energetic and Management Engineering of the University of Calabria, in collaboration with the Department of Mechanics, Mathematics and Management of the Polytechnic University of Bari, on a sample of 200 managers in the recruitment field, was also presented during the two-day event. Balancing digitisation and digital transformation with a 'human centric' approach, leaving people and their uniqueness, at the centre. This is the main need that emerged from the study, which investigated the level of awareness of recruiters with respect to gender bias and the trust placed in AI systems as tools to ensure impartiality and inclusion.
The use of artificial intelligence is becoming more and more widespread: the AI market in Italy is estimated to grow by 52% in 2024, with 60% of large companies investing in it, and 65% of students using it for homework or complex tasks. By 2030 it could affect around 2 million jobs. Artificial intelligence is increasingly qualifying as a ‘general-purpose technology’, i.e. technology that can influence an entire economic system. The risk is to rely on this tool without any critical sense, believing what it proposes to us to be unquestionable.
However, by exploiting its potential, we could speed up and simplify certain processes, including personnel recruitment. The latter is one of the objectives of FS Group, which in its 2025-2029 Strategic Plan has included process digitisation among the most salient points for company development, with particular attention to those concerning Human Resources, with a view to greater simplification and accessibility and new ways of engaging people.
The initiative, under the patronage of the Calabrian Garante per l'Infanzia e per l'Adolescenza and with the support of the Calabria Region and Ferrovie della Calabria, was promoted by FS Group, alongside Digital Angels, Federmanager, Federmanager Minerva, Fondazione Magna Grecia, GPI, Bari Polytechnic, Unindustria Calabria, University of Calabria, and University of Roma Tre, and was held in the presence of the Board of the Italian Data Protection Authority: Chairman Pasquale Stanzione, the Vice-Chairwoman Ginevra Cerrina Feroni, and Members Agostino Ghiglia and Guido Scorza.