Big Brother Watch’s briefing on benefits and financial mass surveillance powers in

(…) This is in addition to the previous underpayment of £1.2 billion affecting 165,000 pensioners due to historical errors by DWP.”5 The State Pension is one of the benefits the government plans to target with this surveillance power, However, DWP is only seeking to use the proposed power to “recover monies owed to DWP”6 – not to pay the billions of pounds underpaid and owed to citizens. [...] This would allow for an incredibly broad scope of information to be requested and stands in contrast to the GDPR principle of data minimisation.18 The lack of legislative limitations would allow for extensive information about a person to be collected and means that the scope of scanning criteria could change at any time. [...] The Information Commissioner has warned that the power is highly likely to involve automated decision-making: “(…) given the volume of data involved and plans to expand how the power is used in the future, there is the potential that processing as a result of an information notice constitutes automated decision making within the definition of Article 22 of the UK GDPR. [...] In December 2023, the Public Accounts Committee noted that the DWP has not been clear as to what proportion of benefit claims have been subject to this algorithmic surveillance, nor has it published any assessment of the impact on customers.36 Big Brother Watch shares the Committee’s concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding these tools and the lack of consideration of claimants who may. [...] It is vital that Clause 128 and Schedule 11 are removed to prevent expansive surveillance of millions of members of the public with disproportionate detrimental impact upon the 40%+ of the population in receipt of or linked to benefits payments.