ISF notes that the government is urging the authorities to step up their efforts to combat welfare fraud and reduce incorrect payments. Decisions to recover or report to the police can have major consequences for the person concerned, so investigations must be legally sound.
According to the ISF, more than half of the investigations result in a person's compensation being reduced, stopped or demanded back. In half of those cases, people are also reported to the police.
In most cases, the investigations are legally sound, ISF emphasizes. But there are examples of serious shortcomings. These can include measures where the authorities do not weigh the intrusion into the individual's privacy against the benefit of the measure. Or home visits made to users without having obtained consent from the user.
The authorities' investigators are not allowed to investigate whether a crime has been committed, that should be handled by the police. The investigators sometimes have difficulty maintaining that boundary, according to the ISF.
