Trade union FNV has filed a report with the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens against five municipalities. The municipalities in issues continued with the fraud scorecard. The union expects the regulator to punish the municipalities with a fine.
FNV (1) confirms the declaration in a press release.
The fraud scorecard is an instrument developed in 2003 by then-Secretary of State for Social Affairs and Employment Mark Rutte. With it, the minister wanted to detect welfare fraud at an early stage. In his view, the social safety net was being abused too much for people to live a carefree life without a paid job.
The fraud scorecard consisted of a large number of variables, including residence, address, income, education level, occupation and gender. An algorithm was used to calculate how likely a person was to commit benefit fraud. Did you live in a trailer park or in a disadvantaged neighborhood? Then you already had the first points on your pants. Anyone who owned a condo got no points. Anyone who tapped 950 points was flagged by the system as a potential fraudster.
A total of 158 Dutch municipalities worked with the fraud scorecard.
In February 2020, the court ruled that the system promoted discrimination and violated citizens' privacy (2). The vast majority of municipalities then decided to discontinue the fraud scorecard. However, five municipalities -Nieuwegein, Houten, IJsselstein, Lopik and Veenendaal- came up with a variant of the risk model: the DPS Matrix.
Lighthouse Reports, Argos and NRC brought this to light and asked critical questions about it. Only when the journalists' collective wrote about it did the municipalities decide to stop doing this (3). At that time, FNV opened a hotline where benefit recipients could check whether they were labeled as possible fraudsters when they applied for benefits.
The union's hotline received a total of 165 complaints. More than half of the reporters did not know they had been labeled as potential fraudsters. The result was that the Tax Office checked them extra, they received a home visit or had to pay back (tens of) thousands of euros.
FNV finds it unacceptable that the five municipalities continued to use the fraud scorecard. Not only had the courts prohibited it, the Association of Dutch Municipalities (VNG) also urged that the fraud detection system be put aside. For trade union FNV, it prompted them to file a complaint against the five municipalities with the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens.
"Despite all warnings, these municipalities continued to use risk indicators that were also used in the Supplements Affair (4)," said FNV vice president Kitty de Jong. She expects the regulator to impose a fine. "I expect more and stricter supervision anyway, now that the AP, in addition to processing the data, will be more concerned with monitoring the use of algorithms."
This week, the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens announced the launch of algorithm oversight (5). AP board chairman Aleid Wolfsen emphasized at the announcement how important it is to have oversight of algorithms. "Transparency about the use of algorithms is therefore crucial to prevent discrimination and arbitrariness. Therefore, it is of great importance that the House of Representatives and the Cabinet have firm ambitions on these very points and want to properly regulate the supervision of algorithms. This strengthens legal protection and gives people the confidence that algorithms and systems with artificial intelligence comply with public values."
https://www.fnv.nl/nieuwsbericht/sectornieuws/uitkeringsgerechtigden/2023/01/fnv-doet-aangifte-tegen-vijf-gemeenten-om-omstrede
https://www.vpngids.nl/privacy/anoniem-browsen/wat-is-het-dark-web/
https://www.vpngids.nl/nieuws/gemeenten-gebruikten-jarenlang-verboden-algoritme/
https://www.vpngids.nl/nieuws/ep-toeslagenaffaire-in-nederland-belangrijk-leermoment/
https://www.vpngids.nl/nieuws/autoriteit-persoonsgegevens-start-algoritmetoezicht/
