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Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms

politico.eu

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Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms

#121

Post by einpoklum »

rocqua wrote: post #44
yunohn wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Until there are clear consequences enacted by the populace, governments will continue this kind of behavior. In fact, the government staged a token dissolution right before scheduled general elections, and proceeded to win the elections and come right back into power. Nothing changed. Truly magical how accountability works.

This is mostly a failure of our citizens deciding not to hold the current coalition accountable and still voting for them. There are some wider 'failure of democracy' reasons for this, but in the end I lay the blame at the feet of people who voted for the current government.

People vote because of a combination of issues. Perhaps the main opposition parties also merit punishment-by-not-voting for other actions. My point is that one cannot lay the responsibility in a once-per-4-years parliament seat assignment.

Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms

#122

Post by logifail »

> Having dual nationality was marked as a big risk indicator

Dual nationality indeed has its ups and downs. FWIW, our children have dual nationality, and on top of that, are all bilingual.

On enrolling them in their first school the school insisted on tweaking the enrollment data we'd submitted to list the locally-spoken language second, and so put the non-local language first, as "mother tongue" (and yes, that's exactly how it's described round here ). This meant the school would get extra money from the government from a pot of money intended to support migrant kids with language issues.

The first time this happened we pushed straight back and asked to get this corrected (all our kids were born locally and speak the local language and dialect like everyone else round here), but the school wasn't having it. They couldn't understand why we didn't want to support the school getting extra money.

What did we learn from this? If the incentives and/or system are broken by design, it can get very hard for anyone wanting to get the system corrected later.

Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms

#123

Post by einpoklum »

Jensson wrote: post #105
croes wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what could cause a causality between income/country of origin and fraud probability? Is fraud genetic? I don't think so, so it's only a correlation at most.

Unintentional fraud is probably way higher among immigrants, it is hard to avoid "fraud" when filling in forms if you don't understand all the rules, even worse if the form isn't even in your native language.

There is no "Unintentional fraud". If it's unintentional, it's a mistake. See also:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fraud

Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms

#124

Post by mahesh_rm »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #117
vanderZwan wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on their username I would guess "being not-white in a country that is totally convinced it isn't racist but is actually seriously racist". Also, it's not discussed much but the Netherlands has a very serious "old boy network" problem where white douchebags who didn't achieve much during their studies except boozing with other white douchebags keep failing upwards. It's the reason why me and my mixed ethnicity b…

>but the Netherlands has a very serious "old boy network" problem where white douchebags who didn't achieve much during their studies except boozing with other white douchebags keep failing upwards. This isn't some Dutch thing. I've seen the exact same thing in Germany, Austria and Switzerland at the big-name companies in those countries (like BMW, etc.). Basically, to succeeded, be a white local from a mid-upper/upp…

Pretty much this. Despite the fact that I am blonde and from Europe. Plus (from my perspective and specific to the Netherlands): it's an ecosystem of speculating "professionals". The Tax stuff is all done in Dutch. Accountants and the likes demand huge fees, and the Tax Authority assumes you are a Tax Resident if you incorporate a BV there. It took 4 years after I left Amsterdam (and about 20k EUR) to get rid of the annoyance of the Belastingdienst / Accountants demanding I would file personal and business stuff there, while I was actually living in another continent. I have been living in more than 8 Countries up to now, and the Dutch Society is the only one I am positive I will never ever try to join again.

Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms

#125

Post by amelius »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #110
rowanG077 wrote: post #64

I'm dutch and this really is disgusting. But you have to understand that the Dutch population has no real problem with this. The exact same political parties were elected a few months after this scandal. It's just democracy really.

Probably because most Dutch people assume shit like this can't/won't happen to them so it's no biggie that the lives of 5 families were ruined. Even less of an issues for them if some of those families affected were immigrants and not Dutch natives.

5 families? the article speaks of thousands of people ...

Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms

#126

Post by jacquesm »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #106
eesmith wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's shocking to read, and reminds me of the British Post Office scandal. A €3.7 million + €2.75 million fines are a slap-on-the wrist for what happened. Even €30,000/case seems a pittance compared to its effects on people. It mentions there were "secret blacklists of people for two decades" and that "authorities [were] hiding information or misleading the parliament about the facts". I don't see how regulating algor…

On top of these fines they have to compensate and pay damages to everyone involved though, they've reserved €1.3 billion for that. The issue affected 30.000 parents, 70.000 children; there were 8000 divorces. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toeslagenaffaire has a lot of information, but it's in Dutch; the English version of this article isn't as fleshed out.

Quite a lot of the damage is irreparable through monetary compensation. Children placed in institutions or with adoptive families because their parents ended up being destitute for instance. Suicides.

Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms

#127

Post by jb1991 »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #110
rowanG077 wrote: post #64

I'm dutch and this really is disgusting. But you have to understand that the Dutch population has no real problem with this. The exact same political parties were elected a few months after this scandal. It's just democracy really.

Probably because most Dutch people assume shit like this can't/won't happen to them so it's no biggie that the lives of 5 families were ruined. Even less of an issues for them if some of those families affected were immigrants and not Dutch natives.

Except it was a lot more than just five families.

Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms

#128

Post by DavideNL »

logifail wrote: post #122

> Having dual nationality was marked as a big risk indicator Dual nationality indeed has its ups and downs. FWIW, our children have dual nationality, and on top of that, are all bilingual. On enrolling them in their first school the school insisted on tweaking the enrollment data we'd submitted to list the locally-spoken language second, and so put the non-local language first, as "mother tongue" (and yes, that's exa…

> but the school wasn't having it

That's rude. I would probably consider getting the school to communicate this in writing, and then report it for fraud at some point; when the kids leave the school, or when I'd be sure it couldn't cause any issues for the kids...

Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms

#129

Post by rocqua »

samhw wrote: post #114
rocqua wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is indeed a big problem. I wouldn't be surprised if this marking as a risk factor wasn't even backed by data. (Note that even if it was backed by data, it would still be wrong).

> Note that even if it was backed by data, it would still be wrong. Is it? This is the big question, as far as I can see. If my country has green people and blue people, and green people are overwhelmingly more likely to commit fraud, is it wrong to require additional fraud checks on the basis of being green? Note that this isn't a conviction. It's accepted that the standard is not so exacting that no one innocent mu…

This is getting off-topic. But it still is.

I'll stipulate that in this scenario the data themselves are not actually biased. Whilst in reality these data often are biased by things like disproportionate policing and heavy punishhment.

Even then, discriminating by government based on race is bad even when a statistical basis for such discrimination exists. What makes "race" problematic to discriminate on is how easy it is to see "race". Or rather, how easily most people classify and distinguish between ethnicities based on how they look.

For an example, lets start with a small difference between blue and green people. blue people are twice as likely to commit crime as green people, with a criminality rate of 0.2% vs 0.1%. If this starts being how you police, if this 2x difference starts guiding decisions, then a lot of innocent people start being disadvantaged. The extra problem is that it is very easy to see if someone is blue or green. So it becomes really easy for a lot of people to start acting based on this 2x difference. This harms all blue people which is disproportionate. It then becomes a lot easier to get to the feedback loop you talked about.

Re: Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms

#130

Post by tluyben2 »

falcolas wrote: post #107
cjrp wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the required budget vanish? People are greedy. Why claim UBI for just you when you could claim for your fictitious family of 6?

At least here in the US, even children have tax IDs. I don't think it would vanish completely, but it makes it a much smaller issue when all you have look for double-submitted tax IDs instead of running heuristics.

I think the unique ID system should be fixed (without damaging privacy); we have the technology to fix IDs to identify people and let them ID themselves or do KYC without the current fraude prone and error prone setup. I understand this is a big undertaking, at the start, but in the end, it will be easier for most people, harder or impossible for fraudsters and easier for the government. Indeed having a unique UUID assigned at birth or when moving into the country is a first step and trivial to check for even if it is, in essence, anonymous.
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