this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
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UK Politics

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Scrap plans to scan accounts of benefit claimants or risk new scandal, MPs told (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 8 months ago by GreyShuck@feddit.uk to c/uk_politics@feddit.uk
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Plans for automated surveillance of millions of bank accounts to catch welfare cheats should be scrapped, campaigners have said, warning the approach risks a repeat of the Post Office Horizon scandal.

The Department for Work and Pensions is seeking new powers to require banks to trawl the accounts of millions of people who receive benefits in an effort to cut the £8bn currently lost annually to welfare fraud. The plan is close to being passed into law by parliament and will be “fully automated”, the government said. It is likely to use artificial intelligence to flag activity considered suspicious by the DWP.

The government said no decisions on whether a claimant was committing fraud would be made on the basis of the mass surveillance, but it would examine cases flagged as possible fraud or error “through our business-as-usual processes”.

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[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 1 points 8 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Plans for automated surveillance of millions of bank accounts to catch welfare cheats should be scrapped, campaigners have said, warning the approach risks a repeat of the Post Office Horizon scandal.

The Department for Work and Pensions is seeking new powers to require banks to trawl the accounts of millions of people who receive benefits in an effort to cut the £8bn currently lost annually to welfare fraud.

Hundreds of post office operators were convicted, jailed, plunged into debt and left bankrupt after the faulty Horizon computer system calculated that money was missing from their branches.

In 2022, the National Audit Office warned a DWP algorithm used to detect fraud in the universal credit system had the potential to “generate biased outcomes” which “could inadvertently obstruct fair access to benefits”.

John Edwards, the information commissioner, has already warned he could not yet assure MPs the latest move was proportionate, and called on the government to be “transparent about the evidence base for introducing this power and its efficacy as a tool for addressing fraud and error”.

Shameem Ahmad, chief executive of the Public Law Project, which joined calls for blanket surveillance to be dropped, said: “As the Horizon scandal shows, reliance on automation carries a high risk of harm.

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