Ah, Staatssicherheit.
Don’t think anyone ever had any problems with that approach.
If they spy on mine they’ll probably end up offering me money.
I presume the government would be just as keen to have job center employees trawl through the bank account of high earners to ensure they’re not evading any tax…
On one hand if people cheating the system it was so widespread and costing us I could almost see the justification even in a 1984 sort of way.
But that would also indicate there’s a big issue with the processes in place already and in actuality the people that can game or cheat the system are insignificant to begin with and a fault with DWP themselves.
As always the poorer suffer
This is an utter waste of time, money and grilling people over a £2.50 spend in Coop is utterly ridiculous as posted above.
All this will do is cause more widespread upset, further cost to the services and more poverty I imagine.
I can not see this happening. The Rich will want assurances that no algorithms will be able to go through their personal bank accounts. History has a habit of showing that once you use tools against someone else it is only a matter of time before those tools are used on everyone.
So if they create it for benefits systems now it could be used to implement a wealth tax in the future.
It’s worrying and I’ve always been called paranoid for paying for almost everything in cash but I don’t like the idea of someone rooting through my banks statements. So what are they going to do about the people who withdraw their benefits the day they’re paid and don’t leave a bank trail for them to scrutinize???
[deleted]
Is it paranoia if you are actually being spied on? Paranoia is the irrational belief.
Its a shame they don’t scrutinise political donors that hard
Probably because in their announcements, they let slip its.. if you are in receipt of or have ever claimed.. there is no limit of time
I’m a bit torn, in UC capital fraud is 886m and self employment fraud is a billion, these are going to be the most obvious types of fraud this legislation would aim to tackle.
This is a significant amount of money that could be spent on public services or infrastructure however going about it this way is very invasive better data sharing agreements with HMRC would go a long way to tackling this fraud in the same way employed earnings fraud has basically been reduced to 0 through the sharing of RTI data.
There have already been cases of people on benefits taking their own life because they couldn’t handle the stress, we’ll just have more and more of that. They won’t change it, the system is working as they intended.
>It would also give powers to search any bank accounts connected to claimants, such as those of **landlords, family members, partners or ex-partners**.
So, let me get this right. Peoples accounts could be scrutinised just because they are “connected” to a benefit claimant?
Well, that’s certainly going to marginalise benefit claimants and alienate them from their support systems.
Landlords not wanting to rent to benefits claimants? Check.
Family not wanting to help benefit claimants. Check.
Partners ending relationships with benefits claimants. Check.
Ex-partners becoming more hostile to benefits claimants. Check.
Yeah, this is a bloody stupid idea which would come with a huge hidden social cost and probably with huge future legal payout costs to boot.
I don’t agree with this but the only reason why it’s happening at all is because they don’t tackle the small number of actual benefit cheats.
While rare, the cheats are often quite obvious and prolific so they are well known to the people around them which creates a lot of anger in the local community.
Having grown up on a council estate I still know of people who have been on benefits for over 20 years and update their methods to the latest scam.
Most of the benefit cheats I’ve ever heard of could have got caught out by just driving past their house once.
Let’s play dwp lottery! New dwp policy announced, but how much preventable suffering will it cause?
Like everything else this government and London’s corrupt mayor have done the power will be heavily abused to extract funds from us all.
This is an absolute violation of privacy. The Tory government are a total disgrace. We have lost so many rights whilst the tories have been in power, including the right to protest. We are the most surveiled country in the world. They have no right to snoop on peoples bank accounts also. [sign the petition](https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-government-from-spying-on-all-of-our-bank-accounts)
This is sickening, they need to leave the most vulnerable in our society alone. There are bigger fish to fry.
Well Tories desperately need money from somewhere and if poor are helped by slightly more affluent family, there is a good source!
Middle classes now under attack as poor have nothing left to be stolen!,
I fear that this is only the thin edge of the wedge.
Once DWP has access they will find every excuse under the sun to say that people are committing fraud. “You bought that new T-Shirt when the money we gave you is supposed to be going towards mobility aids?”, “You are not meant to be getting those nice biscuits when your money is supposed to be helping you to find a job!”
And this will in turn only fuel the outrage that the pensioners and curtain twitchers already feel against the disabled and those currently out of a job, leading to even further cruel and restrictive measures in due time.
The light at the end of the tunnel? There are rumours that the state pension may be means tested in future, which means the DWP WILL look into those accounts too… so hopefully having a taste of their own medicine will finally convince them to band with the very people they like to call “Scrounger” to protect their rights and privacy.
This would be another step on the road to total control over you.
Not like they are new powers, they’ve always been able to snoop to an extent
22 comments
Ah, Staatssicherheit.
Don’t think anyone ever had any problems with that approach.
If they spy on mine they’ll probably end up offering me money.
I presume the government would be just as keen to have job center employees trawl through the bank account of high earners to ensure they’re not evading any tax…
On one hand if people cheating the system it was so widespread and costing us I could almost see the justification even in a 1984 sort of way.
But that would also indicate there’s a big issue with the processes in place already and in actuality the people that can game or cheat the system are insignificant to begin with and a fault with DWP themselves.
As always the poorer suffer
This is an utter waste of time, money and grilling people over a £2.50 spend in Coop is utterly ridiculous as posted above.
All this will do is cause more widespread upset, further cost to the services and more poverty I imagine.
I can not see this happening. The Rich will want assurances that no algorithms will be able to go through their personal bank accounts. History has a habit of showing that once you use tools against someone else it is only a matter of time before those tools are used on everyone.
So if they create it for benefits systems now it could be used to implement a wealth tax in the future.
It’s worrying and I’ve always been called paranoid for paying for almost everything in cash but I don’t like the idea of someone rooting through my banks statements. So what are they going to do about the people who withdraw their benefits the day they’re paid and don’t leave a bank trail for them to scrutinize???
[deleted]
Is it paranoia if you are actually being spied on? Paranoia is the irrational belief.
Its a shame they don’t scrutinise political donors that hard
Probably because in their announcements, they let slip its.. if you are in receipt of or have ever claimed.. there is no limit of time
I’m a bit torn, in UC capital fraud is 886m and self employment fraud is a billion, these are going to be the most obvious types of fraud this legislation would aim to tackle.
This is a significant amount of money that could be spent on public services or infrastructure however going about it this way is very invasive better data sharing agreements with HMRC would go a long way to tackling this fraud in the same way employed earnings fraud has basically been reduced to 0 through the sharing of RTI data.
There have already been cases of people on benefits taking their own life because they couldn’t handle the stress, we’ll just have more and more of that. They won’t change it, the system is working as they intended.
https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/man-died-suicide-dwp-disability-benefits/
>It would also give powers to search any bank accounts connected to claimants, such as those of **landlords, family members, partners or ex-partners**.
So, let me get this right. Peoples accounts could be scrutinised just because they are “connected” to a benefit claimant?
Well, that’s certainly going to marginalise benefit claimants and alienate them from their support systems.
Landlords not wanting to rent to benefits claimants? Check.
Family not wanting to help benefit claimants. Check.
Partners ending relationships with benefits claimants. Check.
Ex-partners becoming more hostile to benefits claimants. Check.
Yeah, this is a bloody stupid idea which would come with a huge hidden social cost and probably with huge future legal payout costs to boot.
I don’t agree with this but the only reason why it’s happening at all is because they don’t tackle the small number of actual benefit cheats.
While rare, the cheats are often quite obvious and prolific so they are well known to the people around them which creates a lot of anger in the local community.
Having grown up on a council estate I still know of people who have been on benefits for over 20 years and update their methods to the latest scam.
Most of the benefit cheats I’ve ever heard of could have got caught out by just driving past their house once.
Let’s play dwp lottery! New dwp policy announced, but how much preventable suffering will it cause?
Like everything else this government and London’s corrupt mayor have done the power will be heavily abused to extract funds from us all.
This is an absolute violation of privacy. The Tory government are a total disgrace. We have lost so many rights whilst the tories have been in power, including the right to protest. We are the most surveiled country in the world. They have no right to snoop on peoples bank accounts also. [sign the petition](https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-government-from-spying-on-all-of-our-bank-accounts)
This is sickening, they need to leave the most vulnerable in our society alone. There are bigger fish to fry.
Well Tories desperately need money from somewhere and if poor are helped by slightly more affluent family, there is a good source!
Middle classes now under attack as poor have nothing left to be stolen!,
I fear that this is only the thin edge of the wedge.
Once DWP has access they will find every excuse under the sun to say that people are committing fraud. “You bought that new T-Shirt when the money we gave you is supposed to be going towards mobility aids?”, “You are not meant to be getting those nice biscuits when your money is supposed to be helping you to find a job!”
And this will in turn only fuel the outrage that the pensioners and curtain twitchers already feel against the disabled and those currently out of a job, leading to even further cruel and restrictive measures in due time.
The light at the end of the tunnel? There are rumours that the state pension may be means tested in future, which means the DWP WILL look into those accounts too… so hopefully having a taste of their own medicine will finally convince them to band with the very people they like to call “Scrounger” to protect their rights and privacy.
This would be another step on the road to total control over you.
Not like they are new powers, they’ve always been able to snoop to an extent
Who else remembers the lady who had her money stopped because their system thought she was shacked up with [Martin McColl](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/woman-has-benefits-stopped-because-taxman-believes-she-is-having-an-affair-with-her-local-post-office-a6673086.html).. when in reality all she had done was use the post office in one of the McColl newsagents