BREAKING🚨

Our new report exposes the hidden algorithms councils have been using to screen, monitor and profile people who receive benefits without their knowledge. ⬇️

These hidden algorithms “treat the poor with suspicion and prejudice".

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-578696…
Find all the details in our new report, ‘Poverty Panopticon: the hidden algorithms shaping Britain’s welfare state’ ⬇️

bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/wp-content/upl…
🕵Our 9-month investigation has found that councils are conducting:

*mass profiling*

*citizen scoring*

of welfare and social care recipients to predict fraud, rent non-payments and major life events.

bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/2021/07/counci…
RISK-BASED VERIFICATION:

🟠540,000 benefits applicants are secretly assigned fraud risk scores by councils’ algorithms before they can access housing benefit or council tax support.

🟠Credit reference agency TransUnion maintains a National Register of Benefits Claimants
RENTSENSE

🟠Personal data from 1.6 million people living in social housing is processed by commercial algorithms to predict rent non-payers.

🟠Universal Credit recipients can be subjected to added scrutiny just because of the benefits they receive
DWP HOUSING BENEFIT RISK SCORING

🟠Around 3 million housing benefit recipients are risk profiled by the Department for Work and Pensions

🟠Councils are forced to review the 400,000 most likely to have an error in their claim leading to a benefit cut
PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS

🟠250,000+ people’s data is processed by a range of secretive automated tools to predict if they’ll be abused, become homeless, be out of work or become involved in crime.

🟠Bristol's childhood predictive analytics database holds info on 170,000 people
TELECARE

🟠#Amazon Echo Dot listening devices are being put in thousands of older people’s homes across the country *without any additional data protection*, meaning that #Alexa is sending huge amounts of data about these people to the shopping giant.
⚠️Yesterday The Guardian disclosed our findings on Xantura, going straight to the chief executive...

Serious questions are now being raised over whether the system breaks anti-discrimination laws.

theguardian.com/society/2021/j…
👁️“It’s the poorest in society who are being surveilled”: the quiet rise of citizen-scoring algorithms - @NewStatesman

newstatesman.com/science-tech/p…

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More from @BigBrotherWatch

20 Jul
🚨 The House of Lords is now debating *mandatory Covid vaccines* for care home workers after MPs voted to destroy our rights in a shocking snap vote last week.

⬇️More to follow ⬇️
This Statutory Instrument is:

▪️ Muddled

▪️ Confused

▪️ Disjointed

Baroness Wheeler asks for urgent publication of clear and detailed guidance for this seismic vote.
"The Department has instead resorted to lying"

Baroness Noakes (@1SVN) accuses the Department of Health of acting dishonestly after they failed to produce a full impact assessment for Parliamentarians to vote on.
Read 6 tweets
19 Jul
🚨Major leak reveals private spyware used to hack journalists, activists + politicians around the world - even w possible links to assassinations.

"Nothing to hide, nothing to fear"? Think again.

#PegasusProject

@AmnestyTech @FbdnStories @citizenlab 👏

theguardian.com/world/2021/jul…
Whilst these revelations are expected to concern foreign governments, it is important to understand this in the context of our own surveillance.

In recent years, the UK has acquired totalitarian-style surveillance powers under the guise of counter-terrorism - including hacking.
UK surveillance is arguably the most expansive system of any democracy in history. Safeguards are threadbare. The state has the power to hack devices of any individual, group, or even a nation. There is no requirement for reasonable suspicion of a criminal offence.
Read 6 tweets
13 Jul
🚨 MPs are now debating *mandatory vaccines* for ALL people working in adult care homes after a cynical snap vote was called yesterday.

More to follow 👇
'It states in the explanatory note that a full impact assessment has been prepared (…) where is it?' @William_Wragg

'The impact assessment is being worked on' @Helen_Whately

How can MPs vote on these draconian measures without sufficient evidence?
'There are serious warnings from the care sector that the Government's plan could lead to staff shortages in already under-staffed care homes,'

@DrRosena explains why Labour won’t be supporting mandatory vaccines in adult care homes.
Read 8 tweets
6 Jul
🚨 We've just published our latest Emergency Powers & Civil Liberties report.🚨

We detail the realities of this vast expansion of state power: secret trials, unlawful prosecutions and fines, protest bans, censorship, and more.⤵️

bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/wp-content/upl…
We detail how:

➡️ 920 pieces of legislation have now been passed in the UK containing the word ‘coronavirus'

➡️Councils have issued £multi-million Covid marshal contracts, up to to 2022-3

➡️Officials have built capacity to conduct 10,000 home visits a day for travel quarantine
➡️Approx. 120,000 Covid fines issued since March 2020

➡️There's increasing disparity in fines issued, with Asian + black people disproportionately fined

➡️Police even issued a 19yo a £10,000 Covid fine for arranging a memorial for a 17yo who had died of suicide.
Read 6 tweets
1 Jun
🚨 GOV'T MUST STOP SECRETIVE AND RUSHED COVID TRIALS.

independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…
⚖️ We are calling on @RobertBuckland to:

1. Review all prosecutions heard under the Single Justice Procedure in relation to emergency Covid laws.

2. Commit to scrapping the use of the Single Justice Procedure for Covid charges.
The Single Justice Procedure means people are being convicted + fined under confusing Covid laws in secretive 'trials' without meaningful oversight or review.

It is likely that hundreds of people have been wrongly convicted under this process.

READ⬇️

bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/2021/06/big-br…
Read 4 tweets
25 May
🚨 BREAKING: UK mass surveillance found unlawful by Europe’s highest human rights court.

This confirms definitively that the UK’s bulk interception practices were unlawful for decades, a finding that vindicates @Snowden's whistleblowing

⬇️OUR RESPONSE⬇️

bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/2021/05/uk-mas…
(1/5) Big Brother Watch Director @silkiecarlo: “This judgment confirms that the UK’s mass spying breached citizens’ rights to privacy and free expression for decades."
(2/5) "Today, Mr @Snowden's courageous whistleblowing is vindicated as is the tireless work of Big Brother Watch and our allies in this pursuit of justice. Mr Snowden clearly deserves the protection of democratic nations across Europe for his selfless defence of human rights."
Read 7 tweets

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