If you receive Housing Benefit. the Department for Work and Pensions is using your personal information to predict if you’re committing fraud. We can help you to find your risk score – and you can help our investigation.
You’re legally entitled to access your risk score and it puts you’re benefits at no risk whatsoever. In fact, accessing it and correcting any errors can help you. Every one who the computer predicts is a fraud risk is subjected to a full review by the council – without you being told why - which could result in benefits being abruptly stopped.
Leaving a computer to decide whose benefits application needs to be reviewed is an invasion of privacy and opens the door for unfairness and discrimination in the welfare system.
Ask the Government what YOUR risk score is – and if you share the results with us, we can help you understand what is happening to your personal information, and shed light on the secretive tool.
Let us know if you have sent off a Subject Access Request, or if you have any questions, by emailing us at info@bigbrotherwatch.org.uk
Make a Subject Access Request
You are legally entitled to ask any organisation how they use your information and why. A Subject Access Request lets you ask what data your council or the DWP holds on you and how it is used.
The responses you get will be vital to our research - if you decide to share it confidentially with Big Brother Watch. In return, we promise to do everything we can to explain how your data is being processed.
If you receive Housing Benefit and want to help our investigation, follow these three simple steps:
1. Fill in this form
2. Copy and paste the letter below into the “Information You Need Box”
We suggest a date range for the request from 1st January 2019 to the present day.
It is important to include a) your contact details; b) any additional information (account numbers, etc.) that the council may use to distinguish you from others.
You may be asked to provide a copy of an ID to make sure you’re getting the right data, this is completely normal.
3. Send the results in confidence to info@bigbrotherwatch.org.uk
Click to copy
To Whom It May Concern,
I am writing to submit a Subject Access Request for information held on me by the Department for Work and Pensions.
I am solely requesting information about the processing of my data in relation to the Housing Benefit Accuracy Award Initiative (HBAAI).
Please furnish me with:
- The data about me inputted into the HBAAI algorithm.
- The risk score/similar generated about me by the algorithm.
- Details on how this data was processed, including details of any automated and/or algorithmic process used to aid in decision making.
Please also explain any other profiling, algorithm or automated aid to decision making applied to me or my data.
Best Wishes,
