Australia "robodebt" Online Compliance Intervention

The Australian government's "Online Compliance Intervention"(OCI) scheme - also known as "Robodebt" - was a highly controversial automated debt recovery system that replaced a manual system of calculating overpayments and issuing debt notices to welfare recipients.

Launched in July 2016, the OCI data-matching system automated much of the investigation and debt raising process where Australia's Department of Human Services detected a discrepancy between the amount of income a citizen declared in a year with averaged fortnightly income data from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).

According to then Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the new system would increase the 'number of fraud investigations and compliance interventions by over 900,000 over four years' and save AUD 1.8 billion. 

System 🤖

Reviews 🗣️

Transparency and accountability 🙈

Australia's Robodebt scheme had many important significant transparency and accountability limitations:

Risks and harms 🛑

Australia’s Robodebt scheme has been criticised for causing financial distress, mental health issues, suicides, and a lack of access to justice, largely due to its flawed algorithm and illegal practices.

Incidents and issues 🔥

Legal, regulatory 👩🏼‍⚖️

Investigations, assessments, audits 🧐

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Type: System
Published: March 2023
Last updated: December 2024