Big Brother banking? Britain’s new “Fraud Bill” fuels fears of financial snooping

Under the previous government, a significant scandal broke out in Britain over a practice called ‘debanking’ – in which several public, but not only, figures were cut off from financial services as a way to punish them for their political views.

That too has suffered significant setbacks, but the Labor government that took power earlier this year appears unwilling to give up its core postulates: it seems merely to be trying to achieve the same end goal in a more ‘subtle’ way.

The policy is this: give banks spying powers over everyone, but call that a requirement for banks and financial institutions to “share data that could provide clues to possible benefit overpayments.”

To achieve the stated goal, the bank accounts of the entire population will likely be monitored.

So you can think of this as the financial industry’s version of the ‘online age verification’ push. In that scenario, everyone (“the entire population”) loses their right to anonymity for no good reason – but for a reason nonetheless. Opponents say the idea is to monitor and control as many people as possible at the same time, in as many ways as possible.

The British government is of course keeping its reporting on this legislative initiative as ‘clean’ as possible – it is intended to crack down on fraud in the social security system, they say.

Remember what it’s called, because it’s sure to come up in the future, and not in a good way: “Fraud, Mistakes, and Indebtedness.”

The government is not only responding to people’s natural aversion to fraud, but also to the sensitivities surrounding spending taxpayers’ money. The sponsors pledge not to waste £1.6 billion ($2.1 billion) of public money over the next five years, thanks to this bill alone.

But to achieve that they need to “extend and modernize the powers of the DWP (Department for Work and Pensions).”

Like this: “Better investigate suspected fraud and new search and seizure powers so DWP can do more scrutiny of criminal gangs defrauding the taxpayer. (…) Require banks and financial institutions to share data that could provide clues to possible overpayments.”

Hold the phone, rights groups are basically saying right now. And some dismiss this as the ‘benefits of bank espionage schemes’ (Prime Minister) Keir Starmer.

“A charter of financial snoopers aimed at automating the suspicion of our country’s poorest is intrusive and unwarranted, and risks Horizon-style injustice on a mass scale,” Big Brother Watch said, adding that this is “an attack on the presumption of innocence”.

The post Big Brother banking? Britain’s New “Fraud Bill” Sparks Fears of Financial Snooping first appeared on Reclaim The Net.