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Content Type: Long Read
In May 2019, the UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) – the department in charge of welfare – published their two-part staff guide on conducting fraud investigations. Privacy International went through the 995 pages to understand how those investigations happen and how the DWP is surveilling benefits claimants suspected of fraud.
Anyone who has flipped through a tabloid will have seen articles exposing the so-called “benefits-cheats,” people who allegedly trick the benefits systems for…
Content Type: Long Read
Back in 2019, we read through a 1000-page manual released by the UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) describing how they conduct investigations into alleged benefits fraud. While out in the open and accessible to anyone, the guide turned out to be a dizzying dive into a world where civil servants are asked to stand outside someone’s door to decide if they are indeed single or disabled and have to be reminded that living together as a married couple is not an offense. The guide – which…
Content Type: Long Read
This article has been written by our partner organisation InternetLab. Read this article in Portuguese here.
Over the last months, the organisation InternetLab has researched privacy, data protection, gender, and social protection, focusing on the beneficiaries of the Bolsa Familia Program (PBF). The PBF is the most extensive Brazilian cash transfer program, and its functioning is linked to CadÚnico, a database that comprises 40% of the country’s population. Moreover, it is a program whose…
Content Type: Long Read
Coronavirus-related lockdown measures have impacted almost 2.7 billion workers, with some countries seeing unprecedented levels of applications for welfare benefits support.
In response, emergency relief legislation for welfare recipients has been fast-tracked worldwide, from the UK to Brazil. These measures, combined with the growing awareness of Covid-19's differentiated impact along the fault lines of class, race, gender and legal status, rightly seek to address the needs of…
Content Type: Long Read
Following a series of FOI requests from Privacy International and other organisations, the Department of Health and Social Care has now released its contract with Amazon, regarding the use of NHS content by Alexa, Amazon’s virtual assistant. The content of the contract is to a big extent redacted, and we contest the Department of Health’s take on the notion of public interest.
Remember when in July this year the UK government announced a partnership with Amazon so that people would now…
Content Type: Advocacy
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, is preparing a thematic report to the UN General Assembly on the human rights impacts, especially on those living in poverty, of the introduction of digital technologies in the implementation of national social protection systems. The report will be presented to the General Assembly in New York in October 2019.
As part of this process, the Special Rapporteur invited all interested governments, civil…