The Department for Work and Pensions is under fresh pressure to SCRAP its bank account checks. Susannah Copson, from Big Brother Watch, is urging the DWP and Labour Party government to “rethink its approach to support people who need it the most”.
She wrote in the Big Issue: “It was a proposal for a financial snoopers’ charter – one that would have come at the expense of the privacy and dignity of millions of people relying on the social security system. For many, it felt like Big Brother was moving into their wallets.
“Under the proposals, if a person’s account was flagged, banks would have to report them to DWP. When automated systems fail or make mistakes – which is a statistical inevitability – innocent people living on the poverty line are the first to feel the effects.”
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Ms Copson added: “Pursuing this policy would effectively criminalise poverty, treating people as suspects just for being in the social security system. It would create a two-tier system in which people in receipt of welfare payments are not afforded the same degree of privacy as those who are not. The risks are high – from instilling paranoia and fear into people with mental health conditions, to subjecting innocent people to intrusive and burdensome investigations, to the wrongful suspension of benefits.
“When the algorithm gets it wrong, it’s people on the breadline who will be hit the hardest.” In reply to the column, one reader fumed: “It violated the Human Rights Act 1998.” A second agreed and wrote: “If the DWP spies on bank accounts, it would effectively criminalise poverty, treating people as suspects just for being in the social security system.”
Ms Copson is legal and policy officer at Big Brother Watch. In the column, she also said Labour must be “a government who ensured that it supported people who need it the most.”