Agencies that use risk profiling must do more to prevent discrimination based on race and nationality. With that message, the Human Rights Board is publishing a new Risk Profiling Assessment Framework. Government agencies, such as the Tax Office and DUO but also private companies such as banks, have increasingly used risk profiling in recent decades. However, risk profiling poses great risks of discrimination. The new Assessment Framework helps agencies prevent this discrimination.
Agencies use risk profiling to conduct targeted checks for violations. But such checks should not discriminate because of skin color or ethnicity. Discrimination based on "race" is a serious violation of human rights. The harmful consequences of discriminatory risk profiling are great for citizens, but also for society as a whole. Authorities should therefore prevent this form of institutional discrimination at all costs.
Sometimes discrimination by risk profiling is obvious. Using skin color or ethnic background as a criterion in selection for general checks is prohibited. But even seemingly neutral risk criteria can discriminate. The new assessment framework helps agencies avoid discrimination in all forms. For example, the review framework contains assessment standards to verify that risk profiles are legitimate, and precautions that agencies can use to prevent discrimination.
Risk profiling comes in all shapes and sizes. At many agencies, such as the tax authorities, a municipality's social services department, or at banks and insurers, an assessment is made on the basis of file characteristics where there may be fraud risks. In live checks by agents or the military police, for example, selection decisions are often based on observation and assessment in the moment. The Assessment Framework addresses the specific discrimination risks that exist in these different situations, and provides concrete and practical instructions for those situations. Any organization profiling for general risks can and should therefore work with this Assessment Framework.
There have been several cases in recent years where risk profiling led to discrimination. In 2023, the Court of Appeal in The Hague prohibited the Royal Netherlands Military Constabulary (KMar) from taking "race" into account in mobile alien surveillance. The Education Executive Agency (DUO) disproportionately checked students with a migrant background during checks on the out-of-resident scholarship. And in 2024, the Board found that a discriminated against two customers by blocking and verifying payments because of non-Dutch-sounding name (ING discriminates against two customers because of non-Dutch sounding name).
This Assessment Framework is published in two versions: an abbreviated user version, which provides a practical overview, and an integral version, which provides more background and a more comprehensive explanation. On the basis of this Assessment Framework, the Board will actively engage with enforcement agencies in the coming period about the risks of risk profiling the prevention of discrimination.
