AI finds ‘soaring’ cases of fraud in French home renovation applications

Authorities in France used artificial intelligence (AI) to discover 44,000 fraudulent renovation grant applications in 2024, amounting to €230 million, new figures show.

Figures from the Agence nationale de l'habitat (national housing agency, ANAH), originally reported by FranceInter this week, show that incidences of fraud via the MaPrimeRénov’ scheme have soared since 2022.

ANAH found that in 2024, one in 10 applications received was fraudulent, and represented a company (typically companies, but could be an individual) applying for aid to help with a non-existent renovation.

Similarly, the agency states that since the end of 2022, fraudulent cases appear to have skyrocketed, including a rise in identity theft in which fictitious applications based on real identities are sent, in a bid to receive aid money for projects that do not exist. This can also prevent the real people from receiving genuine aid in future.

Yet, new artificial intelligence-assisted tools and improved data sharing between agencies and fraud prevention services have enabled ANAH to detect more fraudulent cases and save hundreds of millions in funding. It also worked with a data scientist to better train the AI to detect more ‘atypicalities’.

“By 2024, we had detected 60,500 suspicious cases,” said Tarik Bounit, head of anti-fraud at Anah, to FranceInter. “We confirmed 67% of the [flagged] fraud cases.”

Similarly, in 2024, ANAH received 2,300 tip-offs from people who suspected a fraudulent application.

Once the AI tool has detected a possible fraud case, it is flagged, and anti-fraud officials step in to check and verify the claim. This may include a further request for information from the claimant, the sending of identity verification letters, and on-site checks to verify the reality and compliance of the work.

‘Essential policy’ that more people could use

Martin Lagane, ANAH spokesperson has said that despite the rising fraud, and the agency’s inability to check every single file (even with the help of AI), the MaPrimeRénov scheme is still “an essential public policy…and must not be blocked”.

In 2024, ANAH paid out more than €3 billion as part of the scheme, but said that many more people could be genuinely benefitting from the plan, which aims to help homeowners make their properties much more energy-efficient, to save resources and cut bills.

Read also: What is France Rénov’ aid scheme – can I use it to renovate my house?
Read more: MaPrimeRenov: How to claim grant for energy upgrades in French home 

ANAH announced that it was aiming to enable “700 000 homes to be renovated in 2024, including 200,000 major renovations”. However, only 340,800 homes were renovated in total last year through the scheme, of which 91,374 were major renovations, it said.

Yet, it admitted that these plans can still be expensive, even after the receipt of MaPrimeRénov funding.

ANAH said that the average cost of the renovation works was €55,000, of which nearly €20,000 was typically still payable by the homeowners after financial aid had been granted.

AI assistance

ANAH is not the only government agency to use AI-assisted tools to combat fraud. Tax authorities have also been using the technology to track undeclared swimming pools, buildings, and Airbnb-style rentals.

Read more: French property tax fraud: what is targeted other than 'secret’ swimming pools?
Read also: Tax authorities discover 120,000 undeclared swimming pools in France 

Similarly, early this year, the CNIL (France’s data privacy watchdog) granted tax authorities permission to create their own social media accounts to enable them to look through and analyse all publicly-available information on users’ Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and/or LinkedIn pages, in a bid to crack down on fraud.