The Dutch tax office has paid almost 13,000 people compensation for including them on a blacklist, some of whom featured for several years.

The sums range from €375 to over €1,000 but have been paid to only a small proportion of the 300,000 plus people who were considered potential fraudsters. Most did not suffer any disadvantages from their inclusion and will receive an apology but no money, the finance ministry said.

The Dutch privacy watchdog AP earlier fined finance ministry €3.7 million for operating the blacklist of potential tax fraudsters, which it said broke privacy legislation in six different ways.

By using the blacklist, the tax office violated the rights of the 270,000 people who were included for over six years, said AP chairman Aleid Wolfsen at the time.

In particular, nationality and appearance were considered risk factors. ‘If you had Turkish, Moroccan or Eastern European nationality, then you would be subject to extra checks because of this,’ Wolfsen said. ‘Sending gifts to mosques and high healthcare bills if you had an Eastern European-sounding surname were also seen as a risk factor for fraud.’

Nearly 12,000 of the victims who are receiving financial compensation were monitored for too long. Officials had also made criminal or specific comments about some 6,000 of the victims in their files.

The tax office stopped using the blacklist, which was first developed in 2001, in March 2020, when its existence was first made public.

The total number of victims is far larger than the number of people caught up in the childcare benefit scandal because it involved people submitting their regular tax returns.