Brazil's Instituto Nacional do Seguro Social (INSS), through the state-owned technology company Dataprev, deployed an AI-enabled claims adjudication engine within the Meu INSS mobile application beginning in 2018. The system uses computer vision and natural language processing to scan data in documents uploaded by social security claimants and automatically processes welfare claims including retirement, sick pay, and disability benefits. This is distinct from the INSS Helo chatbot (BRA-001), which provides informational assistance; the adjudication engine makes actual approval or denial decisions on benefit claims.
The system was introduced to address a backlog of approximately 2 million pending benefit requests. The Brazilian government has set a target for the algorithm to review 55 percent of all social security filings by the end of 2025. The Meu INSS app receives nearly 84 million hits per month, making it one of the largest AI-assisted benefits adjudication systems in Latin America.
A detailed investigation by Rest of World (April 2025) documented significant problems with the system's automated decision-making. Joselia de Brito, a 55-year-old former sugarcane worker from northeast Brazil with chronic conditions including herniated disc, scoliosis, and fibromyalgia, had her retirement claim rejected in February 2025 because the system misidentified her as male. Her claim was only approved in March after intervention by the National Confederation of Workers in Agriculture.
The investigation identified several systematic failures: the system issues automatic rejections for minor errors in applications; it cannot properly analyse complex filings from agricultural workers whose documentation differs from standard employment records; it inadequately handles cases involving hazardous working conditions which require additional paperwork; and it has difficulty processing cases involving shared land ownership. Approximately 34,300 benefits were denied for rural workers in January 2025 alone.
Access to appeal is also problematic. The average wait for the internal legal resource board to review an appeal is 278 days. Jane Berwanger, Director of the Brazilian Institute for Social Security Law, warned that unreviewed automated claims 'will turn into legal battles.'
The system disproportionately affects rural populations. Brazil's rural illiteracy rate was 15 percent in 2022, three times higher than urban areas. Some applicants must travel four hours to the nearest INSS office. Edjane Rodrigues, Secretary for social policies at the National Confederation of Workers in Agriculture, noted that automatic denials with little recourse particularly harm these vulnerable populations.
An INSS spokesperson stated that 'each automated decision is based on specified legal criteria, ensuring that the standards set by the social security legislation are respected.'
In January 2025, Dataprev announced approximately $10.5 million in investment to enhance data analysis and fraud detection. In February 2025, a new AI feature was introduced for personalised user offerings.
The system is internally known as 'Isaac' (named after Isaac Asimov), as documented in Dataprev's official 2019 announcement at their 5th Innovation Week. Dataprev described Isaac as using predictive algorithms and machine learning to cross-reference multiple databases for automatic benefit concession, with the ability to process thousands of applications in parallel using adjustable risk criteria. The system also integrates biometric facial and fingerprint verification. At the time of launch, approximately 40 percent of benefit requests faced denial with an 89-day average analysis period.
A peer-reviewed study published in Internet Policy Review (Nicolas and Sampaio, 2024) provided the most comprehensive independent analysis of the system's impacts. The study documented that in 2022 INSS automatically rejected more than 800,000 applications, representing a 300 percent increase over 2021. Urban maternity benefit rejections surged from 7,064 to 60,379, with 85.9 percent being automatic decisions. The automatic analysis rate rose from 17 percent in 2022 to 36 percent in 2023. The study also found that the CNIS database (Cadastro Nacional de Informacoes Sociais), which underpins the automated system, had 24.3 million entries with incomplete or invalid data, raising fundamental questions about the reliability of automated decisions built on this foundation.
Brazil's Federal Court of Accounts (Tribunal de Contas da Uniao, TCU) conducted an audit in 2024 that found significant data quality issues in CNIS affecting automatic benefit concession, including incomplete employment data, inconsistent records, employment start dates predating company registration, and records linked to non-existent company registration numbers. The TCU imposed a 180-day deadline on INSS and Dataprev to address these issues.