Does the National Family Allowance Fund (Cnaf) equate insecurity with suspicion of fraud? Fifteen associations announced on Wednesday that they were contacting the Council of State to obtain the deletion of an algorithm used by Cnaf to better detect fraud and undue payments among its beneficiaries.
The appeal, filed Tuesday evening with the body, “concerns both the extent of the surveillance at work and the discrimination carried out by this algorithm against beneficiaries who are already vulnerable in their life paths”, write Amnesty International, Quadrature du Net, the Abbé Pierre Foundation and the other applicant associations in a press release.
“This algorithm assigns to each recipient a suspicion score, the value of which is used to select those subject to inspection. The higher it is, the greater the probability of being checked,” they emphasize, specifying that this tool “analyzes the personal data of more than 32 million people living in a household receiving a CAF benefit.”
After having had access to the “source code” of a version of this algorithm, used between 2014 and 2018, the associations affirm that “among the factors increasing a suspicion score, we find in particular the fact of having low income, to be unemployed, to benefit from active solidarity income (RSA) or the disabled adult allowance (AAH)”.
“In return, people in difficulty find themselves over-controlled compared to the rest of the population,” they denounce. In July, the associations asked Cnaf to stop using this algorithm. “To the extent that, after two months, we did not receive any responses from the Cnaf, this gave rise to an implicit decision of refusal,” explains Katia Roux, Technology and Human Rights advocacy officer at Amnesty.
Used since 2011, the statistical tool aims to identify among the 13.5 million beneficiaries most likely to make errors in their declaration, targeting “large and repeated overpayments”, indicated Wednesday the general director of Cnaf Nicolas Grivel. Beneficiaries of certain social minimums, such as the RSA or the activity bonus, whose income often varies, must complete tax returns with complex forms and are more at risk of making errors.
Nicolas Grivel believes that the algorithm is not to blame: “We pay more money to families who need it the most and for whom the risk of error is amplified by complex professional life situations. “If a jurisdiction were to take a position to (…) change the system”, the Cnaf would “come into compliance”, he assured.
