By Didi Rankovic – Reclaim The Net
UK’s government is accused of attempting to rush a controversial bill – the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error & Recovery) Bill – through parliament. Critics say the draft legislation contains some dystopian social credit-style surveillance provisions.
The 116-page bill was only introduced a week ago, prompting rights campaigner Big Brother Watch to conclude that MPs may not even have enough time to read the text before they are supposed to start debating it.
Despite its very public-spirited title – the bill’s opponents are warning that under the guise of preventing mass waste of taxpayer money through benefit fraud, it would also serve to set up a system of “mass spying” of bank accounts, carried out by the government (the Department for Work and Pensions, DWP).
That includes constant monitoring of people’s bank statements, the ability to revoke driving licenses, and search premises, computers, and other devices.
The UK’s welfare system would in this way be turned into “a digital surveillance system (…) with unprecedented privacy intrusions,” said Big Brother Watch Director Silkie Carlo.
On the other hand, the DWP claims that while they will have access to bank statements belonging to accounts targeted as defrauding the benefits system, and be able to cause money to be taken from those accounts – they won’t have “direct access to actual accounts.”
That’s cold comfort, privacy groups are suggesting, since the law then expands into requiring that banks and building societies submit reports about suspected fraud, which will allow DWP investigators to exercise their new ability to ask for search warrants, and then together with the police carry out searches, including of houses and devices.
It appears to be yet another example of a “two-tier” system in the UK, this time tied to the justice system – at least judging by Carlo’s interpretation.
She is concerned that, on the one hand, the most at-risk part of society – the elderly, the poor, and the disabled, will be deprived of the right to be heard in court and become more vulnerable to, catastrophic to their financial situation, “mistaken punishments.”
On the other, Carlo said the provisions represent “totally unprecedented privacy intrusions and punishments that will do more damage to fundamental British values of fairness and justice than to the serious fraudsters.”