women travelling to the Gulf and African suggestion that the bill may not be states for the first time. The policy had not implemented until 2024. come into force by the end of the year. DISCRIMINATION ALGORITHMS NETHERLANDS The tax authorities were exposed as utilizing a discriminatory algorithmic system to detect Kingdom of the Netherlands inaccurate and potentially fraudulent Head of state: Willem-Alexander applications for childcare benefits. Tens of Head of government: Mark Rutte thousands of people were falsely accused of fraud and were compelled to repay large Legislation excluding certain documents as sums of money. This led to devastating evidence in applications for international problems for the families, ranging from debt protection was ruled in violation of EU law. and unemployment to forced evictions and A new bill defining all forms of involuntary health issues. In particular, people with a sexual penetration as rape was published. migrant background and from low-income The tax authorities used a discriminatory households were disproportionately affected algorithmic system to detect potential fraud as information on whether an applicant had in childcare benefits. A court ruled that Dutch nationality was used as a risk factor in border police could continue to use racial the algorithmic system and the algorithms profiling. The National Coordinator for assigned people on lower incomes a higher 2 Counterterrorism and Security was revealed risk score. as having illegally monitored activists on RACIAL PROFILING social media for years. Law enforcement agencies continued to use racial profiling, although the government REFUGEES’ AND MIGRANTS’ RIGHTS denounced the practice in principle. In In June, the European Court of Justice ruled September the District Court of The Hague that Dutch legislation – which automatically ruled that ethnicity could be used along with dismissed subsequent applications for other criteria in deciding whether to stop an protection as inadmissible when the individual against whom there was no documents submitted were not authenticated suspicion of any wrongdoing. A civil society – was not in line with EU law. This ruling coalition including Amnesty International had makes it possible for rejected applicants for filed the lawsuit seeking to challenge racial international protection to submit new profiling.3 applications, with the authorities no longer RIGHT TO PRIVACY able to refuse to examine such documents. People seeking international protection in In April, journalists revealed that the National Curaçao, one of the constituent countries of Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security the Netherlands, were detained in inhumane had been monitoring activists on social media conditions, subjected to ill-treatment and for years. The Coordinator collected, analysed denied their right to seek protection.1 and shared their personal data without a legal VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS basis or the activists’ consent, using fake profiles. After the revelations, the Minister of In March the Minister of Justice and Security Justice proposed a controversial and far- published a new draft of the Sexual Offences reaching bill through which the government Act which proposed that all involuntary urgently sought to continue online sexual penetration would be defined as rape. surveillance. Amnesty International urged the By year’s end the proposal had still not been ministry to address the human rights impact submitted to parliament, however, and civil of such surveillance and enshrine human society expressed concern at the minister’s rights protection in law. Amnesty International Report 2021/22 270