How French welfare services are creating ‘robo-debt’

When automated fraud detection algorithms fail, welfare services can wrongly demand the repayment of benefits. Over the last five years, several scandals showed the breadth of the problem. In Australia, 400,000 people were put in ‘robo-debt’, 40,000 in Michigan and 26,000 in the Netherlands. Journalist Lucie Inland explains how the French welfare office automatically put her in debt, and how she fought back.

Version française de l'article disponible sur le blog Mediapart de Lucie Inland : Comment la réforme des APL et la machine algorithmique de la CAF a momentanément classé mon dossier comme « à risque » et m'a crée une dette.