Personal Case
A Family Destroyed by Algorithmic Profiling
This case documents the personal experience of one family destroyed by the childcare benefits scandal — a family with dual nationality, two children in childcare, and a routine benefits claim that became a nightmare.
“They treated us like criminals for claiming what we were entitled to.”
The System Behind the Scandal
The family was caught in a web of interconnected surveillance systems:
- RAM (Risk Assessment Model): Operational 1998–2018, profiled virtually all taxpayers by linking 69 source systems including nationality data and criminal records. An estimated 500,000 selections were made over 20 years.
- FSV (Fraud Signalling Facility): Operational 2007–2020, registered ~180,000 citizens as fraud suspects without verification or notification.
- RIEC/LIEC: Tax data was shared with regional and national crime-fighting centers for “integral enforcement advice” — without citizens knowing their tax data was being used for criminal investigations.
- Heidi: Logging system on the benefits website from mid-2013, collecting portal data including user behavior patterns.
What Happened
The Tax Authority flagged the family for investigation without cause. The risk classification model built by Deloitte used “BVR Nationaliteit” (nationality) as fixed source data, meaning every decision was potentially influenced by the family’s ethnic background. The model ran with only 200 training examples — statistically insufficient.
The “stoppertje” procedure — 160 messages with this codeword led to direct benefit stoppage without substantive review — illustrates how the system operated: no due process, no hearing, no motivation.
The Aftermath
- Debt, stress, near-homelessness
- Years of legal battles with destroyed evidence (~9,000 objection files prematurely destroyed in 2019-2020)
- Forced emigration to Croatia
- Loss of income, business, social network, and voting rights (eight years to restore)
- The recovery operation offered €30,000 flat compensation while actual documented losses exceeded €650,000 — a 4.6% coverage rate (ECLI:NL:RBNHO:2025:8961)
The Five Mechanisms Keeping Cases Hidden
- Non-publication: Single-judge rulings (the majority) are standardly not published on Rechtspraak.nl
- Pseudonymization: Advocate names, plaintiffs and locations are replaced with generic terms
- Settlement policy: The Belastingdienst offers flat-rate “tegemoetkoming” to prevent jurisprudence on liability
- Fiscal confidentiality (art. 67 AWR): Used to refuse access to internal communication about selection criteria
- Burden of proof on the victim: Citizens must prove damage while the Belastingdienst has already deactivated systems and deleted registration reasons