Big Brother Watch Responds to Keir Starmer’s Bank Spying Plans

Big Brother Watch Team / September 24, 2024

Responding to Keir Starmer’s plans to introduce bank spying powers, Big Brother Watch 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.

“A financial snoopers’ charter targeted to automate suspicion of our country’s poorest is intrusive, unjustified and risks Horizon-style injustice on a mass scale.

“This is yet another insult to pensioners, an attack on Britain’s poorest people, and an assault on the presumption of innocence.”

NOTES:

– 270,000 people signed petitions against the Conservative’s 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 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/)

– 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 Conservative Government in a YouGov poll (https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/press-coverage/mail-online-over-half-of-british-voters-oppose-the-governments-bank-spying-powers/)

– Big Brother Watch led the national campaign against the Conservative Government’s bank spying powers with a coalition of parliamentarians and rights groups, and has vowed to relaunch a national campaign if mass bank spying powers are reintroduced

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