Dutch scandal serves as a warning for Europe over risks of using algorithms • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by rocqua » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #24

Kaotique wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand one of the main triggers for this whole operation was the mass fraud by people from Bulgaria who netted a lot of benefits by gaming the system. They traveled to the Netherlands, applied for benefits and then went back to Bulgaria and used Dutch bank accounts and debit cards to get the cash. The tax office never wanted that to happen again and started this program to find fraudsters but ended up clas…

This has been trotted out many times before in defense of the tax office's behavior but it doesn't hold water: far more people were affected than Bulgarian fraudsters and besides that compared to the fraud committed by the well-off portion of NL the fraud committed by the poorer part is negligible. But guess who is better at defending themselves against unfair behavior by the authorities.

This is not a defense of the tax office, but it is the cause.

The 'bulgaren-fraude' was the cause for the government to change policy (and I believe law) to be much stricter on fraud and be much more vigilant when trying to detect fraud. The current scandal is one of the end results here. An interesting intermediary result is that the culture at the tax-office changed to be much more about 'getting the fraudsters' and much less about 'helping people'. Throw on a bit of "bureaucrats trying to cover their own and their bosses' ass" when people accidentally get marked for fraud, and you start getting the results we have here.

I fear that this culture (both the citizen as adversary 'getting fraudsters' culture and the ass covering) is still in place, and much more widespread throughout the government. Similar things seem to be happening at the National Mining Institute trying to discredit earthquake damage in Groningen for one example.

luckily when the government stepped down because of the last scandal, the new government was a big change and a big step towards fixing these attitudes

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

#42

Post by cool_dude85 » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 1:45 PM UTC

fallingknife wrote: post #5

> Authorities penalized families over a mere suspicion of fraud based on the system’s risk indicators This is the real story here. The algorithm is incidental.

Can't agree with this. Even if it was just feeding a list to human investigators, who fairly investigated each case, there's still the significant issue of how the list is determined.

For example, the tax authority in your country right now catches a small portion of overall fraud. I give them a list of "hot leads" of fraudsters that's really just a list of all the ethnic minorities I hate. Obviously, even if they fairly investigate everyone, and nobody who's not defrauding loses out, this practice would be deeply racist and disproportionately punish the minority.

In short, we can't human-wash this problem at the end. Even if everyone punished was a fraudster, strong bias in the initial list is still clearly an issue.

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

#43

Post by jeltz » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 1:45 PM UTC

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #34

yunohn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I’m not. Most of these companies also have incorporated in Ireland alongside the Netherlands to exploit this loophole: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Sandwich > Ireland has the BEPS tools to enable US IP-heavy multinationals to reroute global profits into Ireland, tax-free. The Netherlands then enables these Irish profits to get to a classical tax haven (e.g. the Cayman Islands or Jersey) without incurring…

> corruption has enabled these companies to construct confusing and elaborate ways of avoiding their fair share of taxes. I'm not sure one can consider it corruption, per se, rather it's tax competition on the part of smaller EU states. To my mind, it's not that the countries are being bribed by companies, rather that the laws attract a (far too small proportion of) global/EU revenue to be taxed in their country.

The Dutch allow companies to negotiate individual rates which are kept secret. No, this is not competition, it is corruption.

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

#44

Post by rocqua » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 1:45 PM UTC

yunohn wrote: post #37

sidewndr46 wrote: post #3

> The Dutch tax authorities now face a new €3.7 million fine from the country's privacy regulator. How does this work? Wouldn't the government be fining the government and paying itself with the citizens tax revenues? Also, this doesn't seem to serve as a warning at all. Unless all the politicians and civil servants were removed from their job, barred from public positions and given hefty fines then this is actually…

> 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.

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

#45

Post by StreamBright » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 1:46 PM UTC

Freak_NL wrote: post #25

StreamBright wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like bodies of government without accountability have something in common: corruption.

This was not a case of corruption. Incompetence, discrimination, and lack of accountability, but not corruption. Most civil servants involved believed they were doing the right thing (despite ruining many lives in reality), and none profited personally, provided favours, or pocketed money.

"Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted with a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain."

I use corruption in the dictionary definition sense. I guess you think that corruption only means bribery.

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

#46

Post by orangepurple » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 1:47 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #32

chekibreki wrote: post #14

I hate how the correlation between income/country of origin and fraud probability is discarded as „racist“ by at least Amnesty International. Maybe we should first do a correlation and causality analysis and see what it yields instead of closing our eyes because of PC?

That analysis has been done and the conclusions are devastating for the tax office. https://www.consultancy.nl/nieuws/39000/pwc-belastingdienst-... (dutch)

Devastating? I don't see anything devastating in the article you linked. Perhaps you can point it out? The language is very weak.

> PwC considers it plausible that the people who ended up on the blacklist on the basis of appearance or nationality were disadvantaged as a result. Like others on the list, they presumably did not qualify for smooth debt restructuring, debt forgiveness, or a personal payment arrangement. Unlike in the allowance affair, according to PwC, the list played no role in the assessment of income tax returns.

aannemelijk vermoedelijk

They can't point to a single case in which this happened?

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

#47

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 1:48 PM UTC

Kaotique wrote: post #19

jacquesm wrote: post #2

This scandal and the issues at the dutch tax office runs much deeper than just this one set of issues, they also maintained illegal lists of 'potential fraudulent people' on which 100's of thousands of people that had done nothing wrong, such as having the 'wrong' surname. It's rotten to the core and to date there have been zero consequences for the perps and the damage continues to pile up. Our government has fallen…

On the other hand one of the main triggers for this whole operation was the mass fraud by people from Bulgaria who netted a lot of benefits by gaming the system. They traveled to the Netherlands, applied for benefits and then went back to Bulgaria and used Dutch bank accounts and debit cards to get the cash. The tax office never wanted that to happen again and started this program to find fraudsters but ended up clas…

[deleted]

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

#48

Post by rocqua » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 1:49 PM UTC

liftm wrote: post #7

> risks of using algorithms Bubblesort so dangerous. Not exactly the best headline, is it?

Presuming a sorted list gives an 'objective view' which you can act on directly, without needing to check context, interpretation, bias in your input, and unintended consequences of treating this sorted list as truth, is quite dangerous.

Whether that is done with bubblesort or not indeed does not matter. But thinking that acting based purely on data and data processing is a good idea, that sure as shit matters. In fact, it is a big mistake.

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

#49

Post by yunohn » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 1:49 PM UTC

rocqua wrote: post #41

jacquesm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been trotted out many times before in defense of the tax office's behavior but it doesn't hold water: far more people were affected than Bulgarian fraudsters and besides that compared to the fraud committed by the well-off portion of NL the fraud committed by the poorer part is negligible. But guess who is better at defending themselves against unfair behavior by the authorities.

This is not a defense of the tax office, but it is the cause. The 'bulgaren-fraude' was the cause for the government to change policy (and I believe law) to be much stricter on fraud and be much more vigilant when trying to detect fraud. The current scandal is one of the end results here. An interesting intermediary result is that the culture at the tax-office changed to be much more about 'getting the fraudsters' an…

> The 'bulgaren-fraude' was the cause for the government to change policy (and I believe law) to be much stricter on fraud and be much more vigilant when trying to detect fraud.

Whatever the stated reason was, they failed horribly at execution - by unfairly stereotyping and discriminating against innocent people.

There lots of other ways to combat tax fraud.

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

#50

Post by rocqua » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 1:51 PM UTC

yunohn wrote: post #49

rocqua wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a defense of the tax office, but it is the cause. The 'bulgaren-fraude' was the cause for the government to change policy (and I believe law) to be much stricter on fraud and be much more vigilant when trying to detect fraud. The current scandal is one of the end results here. An interesting intermediary result is that the culture at the tax-office changed to be much more about 'getting the fraudsters' an…

> The 'bulgaren-fraude' was the cause for the government to change policy (and I believe law) to be much stricter on fraud and be much more vigilant when trying to detect fraud. Whatever the stated reason was, they failed horribly at execution - by unfairly stereotyping and discriminating against innocent people. There lots of other ways to combat tax fraud.

Fully agreed.

But the stated reason is still relevant, if only to check what the history and reasoning of the original plan was. Here it informs us how the tax office came to see citizens as adversaries, when that was not (or less so) their stance before 2016.