The government's Department for Work and Pensions has the power to monitor citizens' social media profiles and bank accounts, it has emerged following a new report into existing legislation.
As first reported by the Daily Record, the DWP is permitted to request information from banks and building societies if there are "reasonable grounds to suspect fraud against the benefit system". Official DWP documentation continues: "For example, information can be requested where it is suspected that a claimant had not disclosed capital held in a bank account."
The state can also investigate suspected fraudsters' social media profiles, as well as interactions on forums and chat rooms, photographs, and TV and radio broadcasts. Because this information is publicly available, the DWP considers it "open source".
In its official guidance, the DWP says "all uses of open source research as a means of investigating an individual must be considered on a case by case basis", and that "officers must clearly identify from the outset what they are seeking to achieve by way of open source and the reasons behind it".
It also says officers should consider proportionality, necessity, and privacy of the individual concerned. Continued intelligence gathering, which the DWP defines as "anything more than twice"), might require authorisation for directed surveillance. Finally, the department notes that it does not have the power to conduct covert human intelligence (Chis) activity, and so officers are not allowed to establish relationships with suspects.
The department will notify suspects once they are being formally investigated, but the Daily Record says this open source research can form part of the DWP's pre-investigation assessment and information gathering. In other words, the DWP could look at your social media profiles without notifying you in order to determine whether to open a formal investigation. At that point, it would then have to inform you of its investigation.
The DWP defines benefit fraud as the claiming of "benefits you're not entitled to on purpose". Common ways of carrying out benefit fraud include not reporting a change in circumstances and providing false information.
Benefit fraud is rare. From 2019 to 2020, the most recent period with available data, 2.4% or £4.6 billion of benefit expenditure was overpaid due to fraud or error. Around 1.1%, or £2 billion, was underpaid for the same reasons.
