During the last five years (and counting), the Serbian government spent more than 8,2 million euros on various forms of invasive, harmful software, based on publicly unknown algorithms. In the name of “rationalization”, “operationalization” and other government buzzwords, the current regime managed to force these technologies upon mostly marginalized and/or vulnerable groups, without an opportunity to challenge motives for these newcomers in the sector of e-government.
Almost every arrangement was made between a government body and a particular private tech firm – Saga, but there is a list of companies constantly in deals with the public sector. These companies have been making huge profits while outsiders in this story – including The A 11 Initiative, have been warning every single subject of our society about the dangers of invasive tech on people’s rights. The consequences have been around us and are not going away any time soon.
The Social Card
The pandemic represented an opportunity for many public and private subjects to arrange new deals, mostly in the tech sector. Although, we – The A 11 Initiative, believe these technologies would be introduced no matter what the circumstances, maybe just not in a fast pace that we witnessed from 2020 onward. The Social Card isn’t that unknown across Europe as some states implemented it with the goal of “rationalization of costs” in the social protection sector. That expression is a huge rad flag for anyone familiar with neoliberal policies – it’s never about the human and their basic needs, it’s all about the system and how YOU can serve IT.
In 2020 and 2021, the Serbian government led by the Serbian progressive party and its companion parties, spent around 175,8 million dinars (1,5 million euros) just to acquire the Social Card registry. Then the amenable Ministry of labor, employment, veteran and social affairs spent a sum of 127,1 million dinars (over a million euros) to upgrade the new system. While all this spending was occurring, beneficiaries of social assistance were slowly losing access to the small sum they were previously given due to extreme poverty, which left them in an even greater living crisis than before.
In 2022, the Ministry spent another 666,000 euros on “maintenance” of the Social Card registry, and another 521,000 euros the next year. Every euro went to Saga through public procurement procedures.
It seems that the maintenance got very serious in 2024 – costs have doubled and the government assigns Saga with more than a million euros for this particular job, while the public had zero opportunity to gain insight into this deal, responsible for depriving the most vulnerable of their only mean to survive.
Recently, they struck another maintenance deal. Another year, another public procurement made for one company. The deal is worth about a million euros. Meanwhile, as The A 11 Initiative has been monitoring, about 60,000 people in Serbia have lost their social benefits – the unknown algorithm made most of those decisions, not social workers.
For comparison, there are about 150,000 beneficiaries in the cash assistance program.
Next target – the ill and the young
It’s safe to say that the challenges with digital technology are hard to beat worldwide. As trends evolve and expand (and we become more and more exhausted fighting a seemingly losing battle), these lucrative deals have been spreading into other systems, making them more “optimal” and “easy to use”.
That is, until you strike where it hurts the public the most. While planning to implement an invasive and controversial digital platform for monitoring the health of children – Zdravitas, the government was met with rising frustration and open anger from parents across the country. Many organized protests stating that they would do whatever it takes to keep this platform far away from their children, stating fears of prohibited surveillance and unwarranted tracing of health stats of their kids.
Were they right – we think they were. Fear of the unknown isn’t always rational, but with a proven repressive regime, it’s expected to face public backlash when implementing anything seemingly invasive.
Our insights show that the Zdravitas platform has been, it seems, suspended. For now. Did we mention it is also developed by Saga?
Another reason to fear the new wave of digitalization in Serbia is the “sick leave” digital monitoring system in Serbia, to be put into use starting January 2026. State officials explained that there is a rising need to “rationalize” and “organize” the health records of every citizen of Serbia, which should enable connection between different institutions, between doctors, patients/employees and the employer and, when you put it that way, it does make sense, right?
But here we face the same narrative and fears as stated throughout this blog post. Digital and information experts are leaving room for doubts about the use of this new algorithm, questioning whether it could harm or limit someone’s right to sick leave due to unexpected errors or another problem. Is it beyond rational to assume that this system could purposely harm workers who want to exercise their rights?
It’s a bit too soon to make hard conclusions as we lack evidence. So, for now, we’re only questioning and monitoring, expecting consequences like we did before with previous digital technology in service of the ones on power. Maybe their era of power is coming to an end?
Written by Gorica Nikolin, The A 11 Initiative
