Eind 2024 begon het Centraal Orgaan opvang asielzoekers (COA) met het testen van een algoritme. Vluchtelingen zouden daarmee makkelijker werk vinden in hun nieuwe woonplaats: een win-win voor iedereen. Maar het systeem werkt contraproductief en discrimineert. Hoewel er al grote zorgen waren, zette het COA de proef toch door.
By David Davidson and Evaline Schot for Follow the Money on December 3, 2025
Banken die vragen naar je mening over Hamas. Moslims die keer op keer op het matje worden geroepen, niet vanwege verdachte transacties, maar om hun naam, geloof of activisme. Wat is bedoeld als wapen tegen terrorisme, verandert in een systeem dat hele groepen wantrouwt en mogelijk discrimineert.
By David Davidson and Jan-Hein Strop for Follow the Money on September 6, 2025
For about 20 years, the Dutch tax office used a home-brewed computer system (RAM) that brought the information about millions of taxpayers into one model. KPMG has looked at how the Belastingdienst used this system, and their findings are shocking.
Continue reading “Racist Technology in Action: The Dutch Belastingdienst’s ‘Risk Analysis Model’”Instanties die risicoprofilering gebruiken moeten meer doen om discriminatie op grond van ras en nationaliteit te voorkomen. Met die boodschap publiceert het College voor de Rechten van de Mens een nieuw Toetsingskader risicoprofilering. Overheidsinstanties, zoals de Belastingdienst en DUO maar ook private bedrijven zoals banken, zijn de laatste decennia steeds meer gebruik gaan maken van risicoprofilering. Risicoprofilering geeft echter grote risico’s op discriminatie. Het nieuwe Toetsingskader helpt instanties om deze discriminatie te voorkomen.
From Publicaties College voor de Rechten van de Mens on January 28, 2025
Amnesty takes a deep dive into the shameful racial and socio-economic discrimination against students in the DUO case (about which we’ve written here, here, and here) in their briefing titled Profiled Without Protection: Students in the Netherlands Hit By Discriminatory Fraud Detection System.
Continue reading “Amnesty demands the Dutch government stop using any and all risk profiling”
Banks have a requirement to ‘know their customers’ and to look for money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Their vigilante efforts lead to racist outcomes.
Continue reading “Racist Technology in Action: Anti-money laundering efforts by Dutch banks disproportionately affect people with a non-Western migration background”
Automated decision-making systems contain hidden discriminatory prejudices. We’ll explain the causes, possible consequences, and the reasons why existing laws do not provide sufficient protection against algorithmic discrimination.
By Pie Sombetzki for AlgorithmWatch on June 26, 2024
The New York Times published a fascinating overview of the American census forms since the late 18th century. It shows how the form keeps trying to ‘capture’ the country’s demographics, “creating and reshaping the ever-changing views of racial and ethnic identity.”
Continue reading “The datafication of race and ethnicity”
On the International Day against Racism and Discrimination, Amnesty International Netherlands published their new research on the lack of protection by the Dutch government against racial profiling. Amnesty calls for immediate action to address the pervasive issue of ethnic profiling in law enforcement practices.
Continue reading “Ethnic profiling is a problem in all of the Dutch government”
Na het toeslagenschandaal kreeg de Belastingdienst het advies om drie mogelijk discriminerende fraude-algoritmen onmiddellijk stop te zetten. Toch besloot de fiscus ermee door te gaan: het organisatiebelang woog zwaarder dan naleving van de wet en bescherming van grondrechten. Dat blijkt uit documenten die twee jaar nadat om openbaring was verzocht aan Follow the Money zijn vrijgegeven. ‘Onbegrijpelijk en verbijsterend.’
By David Davidson and Sebastiaan Brommersma for Follow the Money on December 14, 2023
De jacht op vermeende fraudeurs door studiefinancieringverstrekker Duo treft bijna alleen studenten met een migratieachtergrond. Duo is zich van geen kwaad bewust en wil in september het aantal controles verviervoudigen.
By Anouk Kootstra, Bas Belleman and Belia Heilbron for De Groene Amsterdammer on June 21, 2023
Whistleblower reveals Netherlands’ use of secret and potentially illegal algorithm to score visa applicants.
By Ariadne Papagapitos, Carola Houtekamer, Crofton Black, Daniel Howden, Gabriel Geiger, Klaas van Dijken, Merijn Rengers and Nalinee Maleeyakul for Lighthouse Reports on April 24, 2023
As part of a series of investigative reporting by Lighthouse Reports and WIRED, Gabriel Geiger has revealed some of the findings about the use of welfare fraud algorithms in Denmark. This comes in the trajectory of the increasing use of algorithmic systems to detect welfare fraud across European cities, or at least systems which are currently known.
Continue reading “Denmark’s welfare fraud system reflects a deeply racist and exclusionary society”
Giften aan islamitische instellingen werden door de Belastingdienst jarenlang bij voorbaat als verdacht bestempeld. Deze ‘institutionele islamofobie’ werd aangewakkerd door een schandaal dat nu eindelijk onder de rechter is.
By Marco de Vries for De Groene Amsterdammer on February 22, 2023
Campaigners concerned that ‘same racist technology used to repress Uyghurs is being marketed in Britain’.
By Alex Hern for The Guardian on December 4, 2022
The UK organisation No Tech for Tyrants (NT4T) has published an extensive report on the use of surveillance technologies by the police in the UK, US, Mexico, Brazil, Denmark and India, in collaboration with researchers and activists from these countries. The report, titled “Surveillance Tech Perpetuates Police Abuse of Power” examines the relation between policing and technology through in-depth case studies.
Continue reading “Report: How police surveillance tech reinforces abuses of power”
In this op-ed, Sydette Harry unpacks how the tech sector, particularly tech journalism, has largely failed to meaningfully listen and account for the experiences of Black women, a group that most often bears the brunt of the harmful and racist effects of technological “innovations”. While the role of tech journalism is supposedly to hold the tech industry accountable through access and insight, it has repeatedly failed to include Black people in their reporting, neither by hiring Black writers nor by addressing them seriously as an audience. Rather, their experiences and culture are often co-opted, silenced, unreported, and pushed out of newsrooms.
Continue reading “Silencing Black women in tech journalism”
An alarming report outlines an extensive pattern of racial discrimination within the city’s police department.
By Sam Richards and Tate Ryan-Mosley for MIT Technology Review on April 27, 2022
In an official parliamentary investigative committee, the Dutch Senate is investigating how new regulation or law-making processes can help combat discrimination in the Netherlands. The focus of the investigative committee is on four broad domains: labour market, education, social security and policing. As a part of these wide investigative efforts the senate is hearing from a range of experts and civil society organisations. Most notably, one contribution stands out from the perspective of racist technology: Nadia Benaissa from Bits of Freedom highlighted the dangers of predictive policing and other uses of automated systems in law enforcement.
Continue reading “Bits of Freedom speaks to the Dutch Senate on discriminatory algorithms”
Around 2016 Facebook was still proud of its ability to target to “Black affinity” and “White affinity” adiences for the ads of their customers. I then wrote an op-ed decrying this form of racial profiling that was enabled by Facebook’s data lust.
Continue reading “Facebook has finally stopped enabling racial profiling for targeted advertising”
In its report of the 25 of October, Amnesty slams the Dutch government’s use of discriminatory algorithms in the child benefits schandal (toeslagenaffaire) and warns that the likelihood of such a scandal occurring again is very high. The report is aptly titled ‘Xenophobic machines – Discrimination through unregulated use of algorithms in the Dutch childcare benefits scandal’ and it conducts a human rights analysis of a specific sub-element of the scandal: the use of algorithms and risk models. The report is based on the report of the Dutch data protection authority and several other government reports.
Continue reading “Amnesty’s grim warning against another ‘Toeslagenaffaire’”
Uitvoeringsdiensten gebruiken talloze ‘zwarte lijsten’ met potentiële fraudeurs. Dat kan leiden tot (indirecte) etnische profilering en nieuwe drama’s, na de toeslagenaffaire.
By Nani Jansen Reventlow for Volkskrant on July 15, 2021
In last week’s Dutch parliamentary elections, digitisation and the impact of technology on society was definitely part of the political debate. However, racism in technology was, with the exception of BIJ1, hardly explicitly addressed with most parties focussing on topics such as cybersecurity, the power of big tech, and privacy in their party programmes.
Continue reading “The Dutch elections and racist tech”
In a new book, a sociologist who spent months embedded with the LAPD details how data-driven policing techwashes bias.
By Mara Hvistendahl for The Intercept on January 30, 2021
China dat kunstmatige intelligentie inzet om Oeigoeren te onderdrukken: klinkt als een ver-van-je-bed-show? Ook Nederland (ver)volgt specifieke bevolkingsgroepen met algoritmes. Zoals in Roermond, waar camera’s alarm slaan bij auto’s met een Oost-Europees nummerbord.
By Florentijn van Rootselaar for OneWorld on January 14, 2021
Insiders say Dataminr’s “algorithmic” Twitter search involves human staffers perpetuating confirmation biases.
By Sam Biddle for The Intercept on October 21, 2020
In this interview with Jair Schalkwijk and Naomi Appelman, we try to bring some transparency to the use of facial recognition technologies in law enforcement.
By Margarita Osipian for The Hmm on October 8, 2020
Welke lessen over privacy kunnen we nu trekken uit de aanslag op het Amsterdamse bevolkingsregister in 1943? ‘Vanuit een gebrek aan vrijheid krijg je een helderder perspectief op wat vrijheid betekent.’
By Hans de Zwart for De Correspondent on May 8, 2014
Typhoon werd als zwarte rapper in een mooie auto aangehouden. Sindsdien is de discussie over etnisch profileren terecht losgebarsten. Er is daarbij zelden aandacht voor het feit dat de businessmodellen van diensten uit Silicon Valley grotendeels zijn gebaseerd op profilering, en dat etnisch profileren daarbij als innovatief marketinginstrument wordt aangeprezen.
By Hans de Zwart for Bits of Freedom on June 23, 2016
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