The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has confirmed that a test of its new bank account monitoring powers identified tens of thousands of benefit recipients were found to be breaking the rules. If passed, the government plans contained within the Data Protection and Digital Information (DPDI) Bill would require banks to provide DWP with information on every bank account in the country to cut benefit fraud.
To conduct the test, the DWP requested two anonymous banks to use internal data to cross-reference certain types of benefit payments against risk criteria provided by the DWP for capital and abroad entitlement rules. The article suggests that one of the banks identified 60,000 benefit claimants who were violating rules for savings exceeding the capital limits and/or being accessed abroad for more than consecutive weeks.
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