Privacy watchdog Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (AP) has summoned foreign minister Wopke Hoekstra to appear in person to explain the use of a secret and potentially illegal algorithm to rate visa applicants.

The foreign affairs ministry has been using the profiling system to analyse the risk posed by people applying for short-stay visas for the Schengen area since 2015, according to an investigation by the NRC and journalism collective Lighthouse Reports

According to Lighthouse and the NRC, the system has profiled millions of visa applicants based on their nationality, gender and age. Those who are deemed ‘high risk’ are automatically moved to an ‘intensive track’, which can mean long delays in processing their application and increase the likelihood of a refusal.

The system had come in for criticism from foreign affairs ministry data protection official Niels Westerlaken in 2022, who said that in that year 17% of visa applications by Surinamese men had been put into the intensive track. He then asked the ministry to stop ‘profiling visa applicants’, the NRC reported.

Westerlaken’s request was not followed up, an AP spokesman told the paper. ‘We know he was critical of the system. We had several conversations with him and requested documents. Now we have invited the minister. That is not an invitation he can refuse.’

A foreign affairs ministry spokesman confirmed a request had been made for more information about ‘the necessity and proportionality of data processing’.

Benefits scandal

The Netherlands has been called out several times for using biased algorithms. Earlier this year, the AP said it had started monitoring the use of algorithms as part of a government programme to prevent discrimination and exclusion.

The childcare benefit scandal which erupted in 2020 is a case in point. Between 2004 and 2019, thousands of parents were unjustly labelled fraudsters. Being a dual national was one of the indicators for a potential fraud risk, and the data of dual nationals was processed in an unlawful and discriminatory way.

Another example is the government fraud detection programme SyRI, which was found to breach human rights following a court case.