DWP bank data checks for Universal Credit claimants, Digi Mart USA News (United Kingdom): New powers from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that allow banks to report on benefits claimants could see some people have their payments cut or stopped, according to a warning from experts.
Under a crackdown introduced by the Labour Party government, banks are required to flag claimants who do not meet certain eligibility rules. The measures apply to people receiving Universal Credit, Pension Credit and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).
Banks may report claimants to the DWP if they are suspected of fraud or error.
Details passed on by financial institutions can include whether a claimant’s savings are held above a certain threshold. Experts warn this could lead to some benefit claims being reviewed and, in some cases, payments being stopped altogether.
The DWP has already begun issuing notices to banks compelling them to hand over information. Civil liberties groups and privacy campaigners have reacted angrily, and Big Brother Watch has described the crackdown as a “snooper’s charter.”
Once a claimant is flagged, the DWP will review the benefits claim. Anyone found to have been overpaid, through fraud or error, risks having payments reduced or stopped, and may be asked to repay money.
DWP minister Lilian Greenwood said benefit fraudsters “should be looking over their shoulder.” She added that the Government was “not interested in where people do their weekly shop or how much they’re spending on new clothes.”
Big Brother Watch said the checks were “an unprecedented expansion of suspicionless mass surveillance, deputising private banks as an arm of the state and treating benefits recipients as suspects-by-default.” The group warned the powers “risk exposing hundreds of thousands of innocent people to Horizon-style injustices” and said it had won a concession so that anyone flagged “can’t automatically be treated as guilty of wrongdoing.”
Disability Rights UK also warned that the DWP could use the checks to “undertake fishing exercises with absolutely no evidence of fraud.”
