Britain has gone from a high-trust society to a low trust society in recent years, and that suits Keir Starmer just fine.
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).
It includes:
Constant monitoring of people’s bank statements.
search of citizen's homes without any evidence of wrong-doing
search of computers, phones and any other digital devices
Ability to revoke driving license as punishment
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.
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.”
Secret criteria monitoring
This is however, a deliberate misdirection. What the government is preparing to do is make the banks install AI software to monitor the bank accounts and, if the accounts activity meets their (secret) criteria the bank will be compelled to inform the department of Work and Pensions.
Banks who refuse are likely to face massive fines and could even have their licence to trade removed. In short they will have no option.
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.”
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.”
image source: Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street
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