Around the turn of the year, the Conservative government tried to push through immense and unprecedented powers for financial surveillance. If successful, it would have forced banks to sift through the public’s bank accounts, using secret algorithmic criteria to search for ‘indicators’ of welfare fraud and error. In other words, it was a sweeping, suspicionless fishing expedition. It was a proposal for a financial snoopers’ charter – one that would have come at the expense of the privacy and dignity of millions of people relying on the social security system.
For many, it felt like Big Brother was moving into their wallets. Under the proposals, if a person’s account was flagged, banks would have to report them to DWP. When automated systems fail or make mistakes – which is a statistical inevitability – innocent people living on the poverty line are the first to feel the effects.
Given the DWP’s well-documented history of negligence, there was a real fear that the bank accounts of people who had done nothing wrong could be flagged as fraudulent, triggering burdensome investigations and appeals processes, and even the wrongful suspension of benefits.
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Outreach from civil society organisations representing those groups who would have been affected spread to parliamentarians and then to the public. The bill in which these bank spying powers were nestled became so toxic that when parliament entered what is known as the wash-up, following the announcement of the summer’s general election, the legislation became too controversial for the government to ram through.
This was a huge victory for privacy and civil liberties more broadly. But despite Starmer taking to No 10 with promises of “change”, his new administration wasted little time in announcing new plans to allow officials to access bank accounts – plans that alarmingly resemble the Conservatives’ proposals that Starmer’s Labour had resisted in opposition just months before. It is difficult to see how these powers will be anything other than a regurgitated financial snooper’s charter – spying on all of us, but targeting automated suspicion of disabled people, carers, and some of Britain’s poorest.
Tackling fraud is a legitimate and necessary objective. However, the government cannot sacrifice the financial privacy of welfare claimants in its feverish desperation to look tough on fraud. In doing so, Labour risks prioritising an authoritarian image over the lives of real people – people it should be supporting.
Pursuing this policy would effectively criminalise poverty, treating people as suspects just for being in the social security system. It would create a two-tier system in which people in receipt of welfare payments are not afforded the same degree of privacy as those who are not. The risks are high – from instilling paranoia and fear into people with mental health conditions, to subjecting innocent people to intrusive and burdensome investigations, to the wrongful suspension of benefits. When the algorithm gets it wrong, it’s people on the breadline who will be hit the hardest.
But that’s not all. The government isn’t just planning to spy on bank accounts – they’re also trying to take money from them, while forcing thousands of private companies to monitor and report on welfare recipients. Combined with the proposed bank spying measures, it’s a deliberate attack on the poor. To believe that such invasive powers will stay within the confines of the welfare system is wishful thinking. While all of our bank accounts stand to be affected, today, it’s the welfare system in the firing line; tomorrow, it could be everyone.
Looking towards 2025, Labour must urgently rethink its approach – whether it wants a legacy of shaping an ever-more punitive social security system, or be a government who ensured that it supported people who need it the most.
If 2024 taught us one thing, it’s that neither parliament nor the public will readily accept such an assault on our privacy. We resisted it before – and we can do it again.
– Susannah Copson, Legal and Policy Officer, Big Brother Watch.
Big Issue – DWP’s bank account spying plan is an attack on the poor. It must be scrapped in 2025