Big Dutch companies which want to assess how diverse their workforces are will soon be able to make use of a new service offered by national statistics agency CBS, based on workers’ BSN numbers, the Telegraaf said on Monday.

Trials have already been done and, if the concept is deemed acceptable according to privacy and other legislation, the service will be offered to firms with more than 250 employees, the paper said.

Among the information and statistics at the CBS’s disposal is data linking ‘migration background’ to BSN numbers, the Telegraaf said. The CBS can then extract the background of all workers at a given company and draw up a ‘Cultural Diversity Barometer’.

The information in the report cannot be traced to individuals, a spokesman for the social affairs ministry told the paper.

The introduction of diversity checks is one of a series of measures which ministers say will boost the number of women and people with an ethnic minority background in top jobs.

This spring, ministers will also publish legislation which aims to ensure at least 30% of the supervisory boards of Dutch listed companies are female.