PublicAlgoBeta
All case studies

NL · 21 June 2023

The discriminatory fraud checks of DUO

Image: ANP, via Investico. All rights reserved by the owner.

Reported by
Investico, NOS Op 3, Hoger Onderwijs Persbureau, De Groene Amsterdammer, Trouw
Story language
NL
Methods
  • Data analysis
  • Interviews and surveys

Reporters could not get into the Dutch student-finance agency's risk system, so they asked lawyers for their case counts instead. Of 376 objection and appeal cases the 32 lawyers had handled since 2012, 367 involved students with a migration or bicultural background. The education minister suspended algorithm-based selection in 2023, the data protection authority later found the checks unlawfully discriminatory, and the state accepted liability for the damage.

platform-investico.nlThe discriminatory fraud checks of DUOThe Dutch student-finance agency (DUO) scored students claiming the higher grant for living away from home on a risk profile, then sent inspectors for home visits and neighbourhood inquiries.Netherlands · Reported by Investico, NOS Op 3, Hoger Onderwijs Persbureau and others (opens in a new tab)

How they investigated

  1. Data analysis

    Only a small share of DUO court cases is published online. The reporters analysed more than 80, alongside DUO's own figures and parliamentary documents, to see how investigations were carried out. DUO does not record migration background, so the reporters asked defence lawyers for figures from their own case records.

  2. Interviews and surveys

    They surveyed about 70 lawyers who had handled DUO fraud cases, and 32 shared case figures. They also interviewed former home-visit inspectors, legal and psychology experts and affected students, and reviewed case files. The method is described in the main article; no code or dataset is published.

Read alongside