System Risk Indicator (SyRI) "EMPOWER IAS"

 

In news:

• In a first anywhere in the world, a court in the Netherlands recently stopped a digital identification scheme for reasons of exclusion. This has a context for similar artificial intelligence (AI) systems worldwide, especially at a time when identity, citizenship and privacy are pertinent questions in India.

 

Recent Ruling:

• The Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs developed SyRI in 2014 to weed out those who are most likely to commit fraud and receive government benefits.
• The Dutch district court held SyRI was too invasive and violative of the privacy guarantees given by European Human Rights Law as well as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.
• The ruling is also an example of how a data protection regulation can be used against government surveillance.
• This has a context for similar artificial intelligence systems worldwide, especially at a time when identity, citizenship and privacy are pertinent questions in India. 

 

SyRI

• Recently,  a Dutch district court ruled against an identification mechanism called SyRI (System Risk Indicator), because of data privacy and human rights concerns.
• It held SyRI was too invasive and violative of the privacy guarantees given by European Human Rights Law as well as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.
• The Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs developed SyRI in 2014 to weed out those who are most likely to commit fraud and receive government benefits.
• Legislation passed by Dutch Parliament allowed government agencies to share 17 categories of data about welfare recipients such as taxes, land registries, employment records, and vehicle registrations with a private company.
• The company used an algorithm to analyse data for four cities and calculate risk scores.