The Personal Data Authority has issued a warning to the municipality of Rotterdam. The regulator is concerned about the way it uses algorithms to detect welfare fraud. The Court of Auditors and union FNV are also unhappy with the detection system.
To detect assistance fraud, the City of Rotterdam uses a detection system. The algorithm of this system tries to predict, based on various criteria, how likely it is that someone on welfare will commit fraud. Background characteristics such as gender, marital status, nationality and command of the Dutch language are officially not allowed to play a role in the selection, but this happened anyway in Rotterdam. In doing so, the municipality violates discrimination rules and privacy laws.
Maureen van der Pligt of trade union FNV is afraid that people will get an asterisk after their names and the benefits affair will repeat itself. She is therefore pleased that the Personal Data Authority is getting involved. "Hopefully now there will definitely be an end to the use of this kind of unethical profiling," she told the AD.
The Court also previously spoke out against the use of the tracking system.
The municipality of Rotterdam decided last month to stop its controversial tracking system. The algorithm focused too much on young mothers and people who did not speak the Dutch language, with no evidence of fraud. The municipality is reportedly currently working on a new version of the algorithm.
Van der Pligt wonders whether the municipality of Rotterdam has learned nothing from the benefits affair. "As long as people are potentially being wrongly lined up in this way, you have to stop it acutely and not think you can just continue with some adjustments," she said.
The union claims that the city of Rotterdam would have screened thousands of people using the new system. How many of them received an asterisk after their names is unknown. To protect welfare recipients from the municipality's actions, FNV wants to file a lawsuit. The union will investigate whether that is among the possibilities.
The Personal Data Authority has sent a letter to the municipality of Rotterdam. In it, the regulator expresses its disapproval of the municipality's methods and asks for clarification. The privacy watchdog points out that it is not allowed to link data on citizens to uncover fraud.
The regulator wants to know from the municipality if and how many people it will compensate. The municipality of Rotterdam will have until early September to respond to the letter.
