Keir Starmer is pushing plans to spy on all of our bank accounts on the premise of dealing with 'welfare fraud and error'. These Orwellian new powers will force banks to flag people who meet a secret criteria to the government, treating everyone as if they're a criminal.
A major expansion of government power.
"It takes away our financial privacy like never before and does away with the presumption of innocence" says Silky Carlo the Director of Big Brother Watch.
The democratic principle that you shouldn't be spied on unless police suspect you of wrongdoing (innocent until proven guilty) is binned as Britain quietly moves from a high trust society to a low trust society.
In the first wave, people who are disabled, sick, carers or looking for work will be automatically treated like criminals by default, but expect that to be extended to viewing everyone with the same suspicion and contempt.
5 KEY ISSUES
According to Big Brother Watch, there are 5 key issues about the government spying on innocent people's bank accounts. These are:
Violation of privacy.
The proposed bank spying powers would force third party organisations to trawl all customers’ accounts in search of “matching accounts”.
It would allow the Government’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to access the personal data of welfare recipients by requiring the third party served with a notice – such as a bank, building society or online marketplace - to conduct mass monitoring without suspicion of fraudulent activity. In order to do this, the bank will have to process the data of all bank account holders and conduct mass scanning according to secret search criteria supplied by the DWP.
Undermines the presumption of innocence.
The mass suspicion less nature of the Government’s proposed new powers mean that they seriously threaten the presumption of innocence; the democratic principle that you shouldn't be spied on unless police suspect you of wrongdoing.
The government should not intrude on the privacy of anyone’s bank account in this country without very good reason and a strong legal justification, whether a person is receiving benefits or not. People who are disabled, sick, carers, looking for work, or indeed linked to any of those people should not be treated like criminals by default.
Impacts society's most vulnerable.
The new powers would impact some of the poorest people in our society.
This would mean that people with disabilities or long-term illnesses, carers, or even elderly people relying on pensions would be subject to their private financial data being pre-emptively intruded on by banks and other private companies they engage with. Their accounts could then potentially examined by the government without their knowledge putting them at risk of consequential harms.
Unnecessary
It is right that fraudulent uses of public money are robustly dealt with and the government already has significant powers to review the bank statements of fraud suspects under existing laws.
Under current rules, DWP can request bank account holders’ bank transaction details as and when needed" because even without suspicion of fraud, DWP can ask for bank statements (e.g. to evaluate or re-evaluate a claim).
Disproportionate and ineffective
The Government's own analysis shows that, if it works as hoped, this unprecedented bank intrusion is expected to generate approx. £250m net annual revenue – this would be mean recovering less than 1/34th or less than 3% of the estimated annual loss to fraud and error (the 'best estimate' is still only £320m).
Related
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