UWV's Risicoscan Verwijtbare Werkloosheid — the Netherlands' Audited Unemployment Fraud-Risk Score

UWV, the Dutch employee-insurance agency administering unemployment (WW) benefits, has since 2022 applied an algorithmic 'Risicoscan Verwijtbare Werkloosheid' (culpable-unemployment risk score) to flag applications where a claimant may bear responsibility for their own job loss for closer manual review by a caseworker.

Around 70% of reviewed cases are selected by the algorithm; the remaining 30% are chosen at random specifically to test the algorithm's own accuracy and guard against bias — a genuine randomised control sample built into the operating design.

The Netherlands Court of Audit (Algemene Rekenkamer) evaluated the algorithm as part of its 2024 annual review of government algorithms, publishing results in May 2025. It found that cases flagged by the risk score yield three times as many confirmed instances of culpable unemployment as the random control sample. The same review found UWV had mitigated most privacy and bias risks but flagged outstanding general IT-control weaknesses requiring remediation in 2025.

Context: the government's SyRI welfare-fraud detection system was struck down by Dutch courts in 2020 over rights violations, and the Tax Administration's own algorithms were separately flagged for GDPR non-compliance in the same audit cycle — making UWV's comparatively better-managed, but still imperfect, oversight a useful reference point.