COUNCILLORS have proposed tackling “party houses” by asking holiday rental app Airbnb to create a list of trustworthy landlords.

A motion passed by Brighton and Hove City Council requested the tourism firm draw up “a shareable register of reliable hosts” who lease their homes to holidaymakers through its website.

Councillor Jackie O’Quinn, who proposed the motion, said the move was needed to prevent residents being disturbed by partying tourists.

“It’s like the Wild West in some ways,” she said.

“Technology has moved ahead and we have still got to catch up.

“The vast majority of visitors to our city enjoy themselves without these issues and are very welcome here.

“But we hear residents’ concerns and wish to build on previous work.”

Airbnb said it has already proposed plans to register all hosts in Brighton.

A spokesman said the firm already screens hosts and guests against legal and terrorist watch lists.

A spokesman said: “We want to be good partners and have already proposed a statutory host registration system for UK cities, including Brighton, that we believe will work for everyone.

“Travel on our platform boosted the UK economy by more than £4.2 billion in 2018 alone and we have already worked with more than 500 governments and organisations across the world.”

But a Airbnb patent filed in America and published by the European Patent Office shows the company has technology which can determine how trustworthy a guest is.

The software, developed by a firm later bought by Airbnb, uses artificial intelligence to scan the internet for users’ personality traits.

It then comes up with a “trustworthiness and compatibility score” based on the guest’s web activity.

For example, users will score poorly if language or videos associated with alcohol and drugs are linked to them.

Airbnb said it did not use the software, which was patented by background check firm Trooly four years ago.

But University of Brighton hospitality expert Dr Ioannis Pantelidis raised concerns the software could be biased if it was ever brought into use.

“Whenever artificial intelligence software is created, it will have the biases of whoever created it,” he said.

“On Airbnb there is already a system in place where both hosts and guests can rate each other.

“Artificial intelligence can improve on the way such information is gathered and organised and then utilised by any interested party.

“But there are dangers as any bias by the designers of the AI will be in the software.”

Dr Pantelidis also referenced a US government report released last year which showed facial recognition software using artificial intelligence was racially biased.

The debate came as Brighton and Hove City Council also called for the Government to charge business rates to Airbnb hosts.

But a Treasury spokesman said it was unlikely to change its policy.