The government is sleepwalking into another scandal as it pushes plans for ‘bank scanning’ algorithms to monitor bank accounts of disabled people
By
Mikey Erhardt, campaigner at Disability Rights UK
Published: 07 May 2024
It looks like we’re sleepwalking into another Horizon scandal. Disabled people up and down the country are sounding the alarm ahead, with 6.3 million of us potentially affected by the government’s latest dalliance with untested, unscrutinised, and potentially unlimited powers for new
“bank scanning” algorithms, which are being proposed to tackle “fraud”. An issue that is seemingly so out of control that the fraud rate for disability benefits is only 0.2%; the government’s latest plans are essentially a
digital sledgehammer to crack the tiniest nut.
The Data Protection and Information Bill, currently moving through the House of Lords, would give the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) unprecedented powers to monitor the financial activity of benefit claimants without their knowledge or consent.
While this surprise attack on financial privacy has drawn condemnation from many sectors, its effects will be felt particularly sharply by disabled people, who have long borne the brunt of the Department’s hostility.
By ‘disabled people’, I mean those of us whose bodies and/or minds work differently to how ‘normative’ society assumes we should, and who face disabling barriers as a result. These impairments/conditions/differences include physical, mental, neurodivergence, and chronic illnesses.
Like everyone, we have different genders and sexual orientations, come from different backgrounds, live different lives but we all want access to the right support when we need it.
Some of us might even be Luddites, and not without good reason: for years, disabled people have been targeted by the Department of Work and Pensions, whose attempts at digital transformation and policy change mean that the UK already has one of Western Europe’s least generous welfare systems. Between 2008 and 2019, we lost an average of £1,200 a year due to a series of cuts and reforms, including the introduction of the Work Capability Assessment, Personal Independence Payment, the bedroom tax, the benefit cap, the two-child limit, and Universal Credit.
These cuts have created a system that is designed from the bottom up around fear and conditionality for those who need support. But now the DWP wants to g
