Robodebt

An automated debt-recovery scheme run by Services Australia (Centrelink) from 2016 to 2020, which used income-averaging algorithms to calculate alleged welfare overpayments and issue hundreds of thousands of debt notices without human review. A Royal Commission in 2023 found the scheme unlawful and linked to multiple suicides, making it a landmark cautionary example in discussions of algorithmic decision-making in public services. Robodebt is frequently cited alongside Michigan's MiDAS unemployment-fraud system and the Netherlands' SyRI welfare-fraud system as evidence that automated welfare decision-making disproportionately harms disabled and low-income populations and must include robust human recourse.