Just over a year ago, 15 civil society organisations challenged the risk-scoring algorithm used by the family branch of the French welfare system (CNAF). The legal action was brought before the French Conseil d’État on the grounds of personal data protection and the principle of non-discrimination. This algorithm assigns a suspicion score to each beneficiary and selects those to subject to further checks. Every month, the algorithm analyses the personal data of more than 32 million people and calculates more than 13 million scores. Factors that increase a suspicion score include having a low income, being unemployed, receiving the minimum income benefit or disability benefits.

Today, our coalition is proud to welcome 10 new organisations in this litigation. We are now 25 asking for a ban of the CNAF’s scoring algorithm. The diversity of the coalition – bringing together groups of affected people, unions as well as French and European fundamental rights NGOs – demonstrate the broad resistance to the CNAF’s algorithm and more broadly against discriminatory algorithms targeting vulnerable people.

Our legal action started in October 2024 before the Conseil d’État targets both the extent of the surveillance in place and the discrimination perpetrated by this algorithm. Fuelled by personal data of millions of people, it deliberately targets the most disadvantaged. The serious discrimination at the heart of the algorithm has been confirmed by the Défenseur des Droits – the French Ombudsperson – in an opinion sent to the court in last October.

Finally, on 15 January 2026, the CNAF released the source code of its current algorithm. While we welcome the efforts towards transparency — the CNAF had previously refused to disclose the source code of the algorithm in use — transparency alone is not enough. This should not distract from the fact that a 2025 internal CNAF study we obtained recognised the algorithm’s discriminatory effects. Our coalition included this study in a new brief sent to the court in December.

“Our new, expanded coalition brings together a variety of European and French organisations from a range of backgrounds. This shows that the Conseil d’État should refer the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union so that the court can issue a pan-European decision,” says Bastien Le Querrec, legal officer at La Quadrature du Net.

The Conseil d’État informed the plaintiffs that the written phase of the litigation will close at the end of this month. We expect the public hearing to take place next spring.

New plaintiffs:

Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT)
Union Syndicale Solidaires
Fédération Syndicale Unitaire Travail Emploi Insertion Organismes Sociaux (FSU TEIOS)
Data for Good
European Digital Rights (EDRi)
AlgorithmWatch
European Network Against Racism
Panoptykon Foundation
Mouvement des mères isolées
Féministes contre le cyberharcèlement

First plaintiffs:

La Quadrature du Net (LQDN)
Association d’Accès aux Droits des Jeunes et d’Accompagnement vers la Majorité (AADJAM)
Aequitaz
Amnesty International France
Association nationale des assistant·e·s de service social (ANAS)
APF France handicap
Collectif Changer de Cap
Fondation Abbé Pierre
Groupe d’information et de soutien des immigré·es (Gisti)
Le Mouton numérique
La Ligue des droits de l’Homme (LDH)
Mouvement national des chômeurs et précaires (MNCP)
Mouvement Français pour un Revenu de base (MFRB)
CNDH Romeurope
Syndicat des avocats de France (SAF)

CNAF's discriminatory scoring algorithm: 10 new organisations join the case before the Conseil d’État in France