RAM investigation sent to the House of Representatives

News item | 06-03-2025 | 16:45

KPMG's investigation into the past functioning of the Risk Analysis Model (RAM) was sent to the House of Representatives today. The research looks back on the operation of this so-called “data combination system” within the tax authorities, which was used intensively between 1998 and 2018. The investigation found that RAM did not meet the requirements applicable at the time in terms of privacy legislation, security regulations and archiving. In doing so, the KPMG investigation confirms the images from previous studies about data use by the tax authorities at the time. From 2018, the service has made improvements that lead to a better balance between supervision and data protection. This is what Secretary of State Van Oostenbruggen reports in the policy response to the report prior to the Tax Administration Commission debate on 13 March 2025.

The research shows that RAM was created in the late 90s due to a lack of practical support for supervising. The access to data from systems was still limited at that time. With the use of RAM, employees no longer had to search for information per taxpayer in different source systems, but could view data from different sources at once in RAM. The need for a search system like RAM increased at that time due to the social and political pressure felt to combat fraud. This enabled RAM to grow from a local application into a widely used national system. This growth did not take sufficient account of the applicable guarantees. Today's tax authorities work differently than the tax authorities of the past. For example, it is now pre-tested whether a distinction is made between groups on undesirable grounds in selections and there is a team that works on the ethical issues surrounding the use of algorithms.

State Secretary van Oostenbruggen (Taxation, Tax Administration and Customs): “Although I understood, based on the zeitgeist, how RAM could be created at the time, it is certain that the tax authorities should not and should not have used RAM that way. I can't change the past, so I want to focus on what we need to do in the present. This means that I want to be clear whether the use of RAM may have violated fundamental rights at the time due to the use of nationality in the selection. I want to clarify this by June 2025 at the latest.” The minister continues: “And I want the existing laws and regulations to be properly complied with. That is why the tax authorities are continuing their approach to complying with the GDPR and will continue to support and train employees in the field of data processing and information security.”

Other systems also investigated

As part of the investigation, KPMG identified 12 systems that may be similar to RAM based on criteria. 5 of these systems are still in use by the tax authorities. For these systems, the service investigated whether they comply with legal requirements and frameworks for privacy and information security. This analysis shows that there are no automated selections and profiling. It has also not been found that there are special personal data in these systems, as referred to in the AVG. However, in order to limit access to tax data, a large number of authorizations from employees who do not need direct access for work are revoked for 1 system. Furthermore, active monitoring of the use of the system will be introduced immediately. This is in line with the Resilience approach that the House was informed about in April 2024.Customs and Surcharges also used RAM at the time. For these services, the report shows that a few employees per shift had access to RAM, but it is not clear whether and how they actually used RAM. In addition, Customs uses 1 system that is comparable to the RAM criteria. This is a system for making selections on the goods declarations of entrepreneurs that Customs receives through various declaration systems — a legal task under the Union Customs Code. More information can be found in the letter to Parliament below about RAM and the KPMG investigation.

Documents

• Letter to Parliament: external study results Risk Analysis Model
• State Secretary Van Oostenbruggen (Taxation, Tax Administration and Customs) shares the results of the external investigation into...
• Parliamentary Paper: Letter to Parliament | 06-03-2025