Big Brother Watch response to intrusive powers in the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error & Recovery) Bill

Responding to the Government’s claim of the “biggest fraud crackdown in a generation” via the newly published Public Authorities (Fraud, Error & Recovery) Bill, director of privacy and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, Silkie Carlo, said:

“We all want genuine fraudsters to face the law, especially the multi-millionaire tax avoiders and Covid scammers.

“But these extreme powers are not only about fraud but about correcting the government’s own frequent payment errors.

“We must be extremely cautious about the government creating a second tier justice system reserved for people who rely on welfare that side-steps fair hearings in courts to take away people’s funds and freedoms.

“The public and parliament will rightly be very sceptical about empowering the government to go directly into anyone’s bank accounts to take our money and even our driving licenses, least not to target the elderly, disabled and people on the poverty line whose lives could be destroyed by mistaken punishments.

“This is not quite ‘the biggest fraud crackdown in a generation’, but one of the biggest assaults on the welfare system in a generation. It’s part of a wider plan that is turning British welfare into a digital surveillance system, with the government also introducing mass bank spying of the population under the same Bill, on the premise of constantly investigating benefits claimants.

“These are totally unprecedented privacy intrusions and punishments that will do more damage to fundamental British values of fairness and justice than to the serious fraudsters.”

NOTES:

– Big Brother Watch is co-ordinating a national campaign of major civil society groups against the intrusive powers in the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error & Recovery) Bill, at StopBankSpying.com

– 270,000+ people have signed petitions against the proposed mass bank spying powers (https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/press-releases/270000-people-sign-petitions-urging-government-to-stop-bank-spying-in-response-to-new-surveillance-powers/) which were previously dropped when the Conservative Government’s Data Protection and Digital Information Bill was defeated during the pre-election wash up (https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/bankspying/big-issue-governments-bank-spying-plans-binned/). These powers are set to be reintroduced in the Labour bill.

– A legal opinion by Dan Squires KC of Matrix Chambers found the mass bank spying powers were highly likely to be an unlawful interference with the right to privacy: https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/press-releases/governments-new-bank-spying-powers-breach-privacy-rights-warn-lawyers/

– The majority of the public, 56%, opposed the bank spying powers under the last Government in a YouGov poll (https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/press-coverage/mail-online-over-half-of-british-voters-oppose-the-governments-bank-spying-powers/)

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