How Denmark’s Welfare State Became a Surveillance Nightmare

Denmark’s Public Benefits Administration employs hundreds of people who oversee one of the world’s most well-funded welfare states. The country spends 26 percent of its GDP on benefits—more than Sweden, the United States, and the United Kingdom. It’s been hailed as a leading example of how governments can support their most vulnerable citizens. Bernie Sanders, the US senator, called the Nordic nation of 6 million people a model for how countries should approach welfare. But over the past decade, the scale of Denmark’s benefits spending has come under intense scrutiny, and the perceived scourge of welfare fraud is now at the top of the country’s political agenda.