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Would you trust bounty hunters to enforce the law?

Boba fett The papers today all carry a story which first broke last month – the proposed use of credit rating agencies like Experian to catch people committing benefit fraud.

This is a very bad idea. Nobody approves of benefit cheats. But mining private data on a routine basis on the off-chance of catching people out is a disproportionate invasion of privacy. 

There's a presumption of innocence in this country, and trawling everyone's credit data and treating us all as suspects brings that into question. Furthermore, there is or should be a bright line between the state and the private sector. Taking powers of legal investigation and enforcement which ought to sit with the state, and granting them to private organisations, blurs that line. Worse still, if profit-making companies are rewarded by the number of people they catch they will have a perverse incentive to sling accusations in any even marginally plausible case – because they'll have nothing to lose and potentially something to gain in the smearing.

Ultimately, it's probably not in the interests of the companies either. People will be far less likely to comply with their requirements in the future if it's known that one risks such intrusion in doing so.

Credit agencies should think carefully about effectively becoming enforcers for the state, compromising private information they've accumulated about people.

By Alex
Deane

Update: I discussed this on Newsnight

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Alex Deane Posted in Overbearing state, Privacy
  • R Kassam

    Various good points, all well made.

  • http://ampers.wordpress.com Andrew Ampers Taylor

    Hi Alex…
    You wrote “There’s a presumption of innocence in this country”
    Haven’t they allowed Corpus Juris into this country by the back door?
    And have you been through the hoops at Heathrow (as a passenger) recently?
    Alas, those days are disappearing fast when we were innocent until proven guilty.
    Ampers

  • http://profile.typepad.com/alexdeane Alex Deane

    @RK – thanks.
    @Ampers – completely agree it’s being eroded. When images and footage of all of us are constantly recorded by the state and viewed in order for us to prove our innocence, that presumption is being reversed. When we have to get a kite mark of non-perversion from the state before being allowed to volunteer for a youth group, that presumption is being reversed. And this is just another example.

  • http://mikecunningham.wordpress.com/ Mike Cunningham

    This idea should be thoroughly stamped upon, as it is nothing more than an Executive Branch of the Government stating, ‘here is the prize, which is all the data we hold on British people. All you have to do is cross-check against your data, and flag up the fraudsters. Oh, and by the way, don’t worry about Data Protection laws, or the fact that you can store all this info and sell it, we don’t mind’
    Trust the Government AND Experian, you must be joking!

  • http://profile.typepad.com/alexdeane Alex Deane

    To the above, having had a chance to think about I’d add the following:
    * There are plenty of entirely innocent people on benefits who shouldn’t be treated like this. People on benefits are entitled to privacy like anyone else.
    * It’s not a slur on the private sector to oppose this. There’s a reason we don’t pay the police per arrest they make – it’s because we’d all wind up constantly getting nicked if we did!
    * You don’t need these powers to catch benefit cheats. The massive explosion in the complexity and types and amounts of benefits under the last government certainly made things more difficult but pre-1997 there was no such need for intrusive powers to catch cheats. The problem’s with the system itself – making policing powers more intrusive doesn’t help. Ultimately, though, even if it were to be of marginal help then it shouldn’t be done – because it is disproportionate and invasive.
    * Even if you think it’s right to intrude on people on benefits like this, once these systems are set up, once it’s established that trawling private data in acceptable form of policing for benefit recipients, who’s next?
    * Nobody knew that their data would be used like this when they entered into agreements with their telephone/gas/electricity/credit providers (etcetera). There’s no true consent here – the data shouldn’t be used for another purpose to those disclosed when they were signed up.
    * These agencies make massive mistakes – a lot. Their competence is a real problem for people vis a vis credit ratings right now – imagine how bad it will be if they’re given quasi-policing powers.
    * I’ve also started nicking Mike Cunningham’s point, in response to the standard “nothing to hide, nothing to fear” point supporters of this scheme are making: plenty of people have had problems with HMRC although they’ve done nothing wrong. Plenty of people have had problems with credit agencies although they’ve done nothing wrong. Now we’re being asked to trust both of them at once!

  • http://alastairs-place.net alastair

    I definitely agree that the primary problem is that the benefits system is too complicated and therefore much more open to abuse than it should be. That and the fact that a certain section of our population appears to regard such behaviour as acceptable (provided they don’t get caught, obviously).
    But I’m not sure that the credit reference agencies (who, let’s remember, are already being used in a piecemeal way in this regard) are actually doing what you’re implying. On Newsnight last night it seemed that they were merely being paid to suggest people whose affairs might be worth looking at rather than to actually provide data. Presumably this is not the only way that people are chosen for investigation… I’d expect a certain proportion to be picked entirely at random, and others because of discrepancies that were noticed by the government itself.
    I’m not sure, actually, that that’s objectionable (or at least, no more so than the idea of credit reference agencies in the first place).

  • http://www.trinity-associates.com Kevin Gethin

    There are complications with the benefits system, and we have to crack down on the benefit cheats. Chris Grayling is just the man to catch the cheats. He has a track record on the matter of fidling benefits. Chris has been MP for Epsom & Ewell for some time now. Within weeks of first being elected in 2001, he bought a flat in a six-storey block for £127,000. In 2002, he set up an unusual arrangement with the Parliamentary Fees Office, claiming £625 a month for mortgages on two separate properties, both the main home and the new flat in Pimlico. This is usually against the rules, but Mr Grayling negotiated an agreement because he was unable to obtain a 100% mortgage on the London flat that he had bought.
    This arrangement ended in May 2006.
    Over the summer of 2005, Mr Grayling undertook a complete refurbishment of the flat. Shortly after the general election in May, Mr Grayling claimed £4,250 for redecorating and £1,561 for a new bathroom.
    The next month, he claimed £1,341 for new kitchen units and in July, he claimed a further £1,527 for plumbing and £1,950 for work that included rewiring the flat throughout. It is thought to have risen substantially in value since then.
    Chris Grayling has a sizeable property portfolio. A Pimlico flat, which is only a short walk from the Commons is believed to have risen in value despite the recession. A studio flat in the same block is currently on sale for £235,000.
    On the Parliamentary register of interests, Mr Grayling declares that he rents out two further houses that he owns in London.
    The family home he shares with wife Sue and their two children in Ashtead is inside the M25 and in the heart of Surrey’s commuter belt. The imposing house with its sweeping drive and grounds cost £680,000 in 2000.
    Mr Grayling defended his claims last night and said that using one of his existing properties would not have saved the taxpayer money. “I needed two loans to buy my London flat in 2001,” he said.
    “One was the standard maximum loan available for a second property and the second was to pay for the 20 per cent deposit. In addition to serving my constituents, I have spent several years serving in the shadow cabinet, currently as the shadow home secretary.
    “A second home enables me to meet those commitments.
    Notwithstanding the second home Chris was forced to take that tiring journey from Epsom to Westminster, when he was needed, the journey from Epsom to Waterloo is a staggering 45 mins tops, then one faces the terror of the Tube at least five stops and of course he may have to stand all the way, lets not forget that, we must alaso consider that Chris the cheat catcher might not be standing next to a very nice type of person. A Non Daily Mail reader for example.
    Chris was forced to claim an extra £10,105.00 in travel expenses, a monthly season travel card from Epsom is £200.00 Paul Burstow MP for the neighbouring consituency of Sutton & Cheam did not claima second home allowance and his travel expenses were just over £1000.00