Doomed by Algorithm: Serbia’s ‘Social Card’ Leaves Society’s Weakest Exposed

[1van]

Serbia’s Social Card law was supposed to make the welfare system fairer and more transparent. It is doing the exact opposite.

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The legislation prescribes the establishment of a “Social Card” – a centralised electronic record of the social and economic status of individuals (applicants and beneficiaries of the social welfare aid) and of persons related to them.

The system processes around 130 different types of data on individuals, automatically collecting them from other registers handled by public authorities, such as the Tax Administration or Ministry of Interior.

NGOs and human rights activists monitoring the implementation of the law, as well as legally assisting those in need, say the new system dehumanizes the social welfare application process, as it introduces the use of an algorithm that determines the eligibility of applicants.

Moreover, the system is not accessible to the public, even after NGOs made several attempts to access the algorithm, its source code, or at least its logic. It is therefore almost impossible to secure any kind of oversight and scrutiny.

This lack of transparency in the decision-making process is also undermining the applicants’ right to appeal and challenge decisions on welfare aid since they are not informed of the underlying logic and legal ground of the decision.

Having in mind that the beneficiaries of social support mostly come from vulnerable groups who generally lack the resources to engage in complex and rigid administrative proceedings, the Social Card system inflicts most harm on those who are already marginalized in society, such as Roma or persons with disabilities.

Their access to support services has become even more complex, and their only source of assistance is local NGOs, also struggling with a lack of human and financial resources and with the generally shrinking space for civil society in Serbia.

Pressures are coming not only from the state’s side but from the Bar Association as well; it has been targeting members who provide free legal aid through NGOs.

Apart from restricting citizens’ right to social security, the Social Card system endangers citizens’ privacy and data protection rights, introducing automatization of the processes in social welfare without respecting basic data protection principles, most of all data minimization and purpose limitation.

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Ceo tekst: https://balkaninsight.com/2023/07/25/doo...t-exposed/