The UK government has made a series of changes to the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill which it calls “common sense” to prevent fraud and protect the public.
Transparency over data in general is emphasised in the changes to enhance cooperation with the government to tackle common benefit fraud. The government will require third parties such as banks and financial institutions to be fully cooperative on sharing mandatory data.
And privacy concerns are still taken seriously by the government’s own standards, meaning only a necessary amount of data will be accessed and “only in instances which show a potential risk of fraud and error”. However, it is clear the government desires more control over data available to them in the private sector to quickly detect fraud within government operations.
The government’s aim is to reduce benefit fraud and safeguard up to £600 million of tax payers money over the next five years.
Anti-terrorism police will also possess additional powers under the amended bill to enforce the collection of biometric data, such as fingerprints, from foreign criminals to enter into the national police biometric database. The data shared by INTERPOL will be able to be retained indefinitely just the same as for convictions secured in the UK.
Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Michelle Donelan, said:
“These changes protect our privacy and data while also injecting common sense into the system – whether it is cracking down on cookies, scrapping pointless paperwork which stifles productivity, tackling benefit fraud or making it easier to protect our citizens from criminals”.
