UK government's bank data sharing plan blasted by critics
UK government's bank data sharing plan blasted by critics
Access to account info needed to tackle benefit fraud, latest bill claims
... Big Brother Watch slammed the new powers. Director Silkie Carlo said: "Starmer's benefits bank spying proposals sound alarmingly similar to the powers Labour fought just a few months ago in opposition. Everyone wants fraud to be dealt with, and the government already has strong powers to investigate the bank statements of suspects.
"But to force banks to constantly spy on benefits recipients without suspicion means that not only millions of disabled people, pensioners, and carers will be actively spied on but the whole population's bank accounts are likely to be monitored for no good reason."
Carlo said a "financial snoopers' charter" designed to automate suspicion of the UK's poorest people was intrusive, unjustified, and risks the kind of injustice seen during the Post Office Horizon scandal.
"This is yet another insult to pensioners, an attack on Britain's poorest people, and an assault on the presumption of innocence," she said.
Oh surprise. The UK spying on its citizens, at a micro spend level. It's bizarre to me, how the good people of the UK love to bend over that barrel so easily.
I can't even put into words how disgusting I find this.
"I can see the Labour Party coming to power in the next election - maybe, maybe not - who knows? But it doesn't really make a difference who's in power - the State remains the same, the structure is still there, they just tinker with it a little here and there." - Oi Polloi