People are being forced to submit photos of themselves holding a local daily paper in order to claim universal credit. One organisation supporting a claimant compared the demands to “what kidnappers do” bigissue.com/news/social-ju…
The instructions are being posted in online universal credit accounts and also tell claimants to have someone else photograph them stood outside their front door – which must be open – with the whole property visible
Claimants were not told what they should do if they did not have access to a smart phone, could not get another person’s help to take the photos in the time given, could not reach their street sign, if a daily paper was not published in their area or if they could not afford one 
Forcing people on low incomes to follow these instructions is “both humiliating and dehumanising”, @publiclawcentre said after bringing attention to the practice
The number of people relying on universal credit to afford essentials doubled during the pandemic, rising to a peak of six million earlier this year bigissue.com/news/social-ju…
The director general in charge of #UniversalCredit said the requests were legitimate and part of verifying claimants’ identities without meeting face-to-face
“We always said we would go back and verify claims,” the government said bigissue.com/news/social-ju…
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