Artificial Intelligence will be used in a crackdown on benefit cheats, the Government has announced.
The Department for Work and Pensions is investing £70million into high-tech ‘machine learning’ in an attempt to identify patterns and anomalies among welfare applications that could be fraud.
And in sweeping reforms, DWP investigators will be given powers to make arrests and conduct searches, as well as retrieve information from claimants’ banks.
An estimated £6.4billion was lost to fraudsters in the last financial year, and the crackdown comes a month after a Bulgarian gang admitted masterminding Britain’s biggest benefits fraud, stealing £54 million through claims ‘factories’.
The Department for Work and Pensions is investing £70million into high-tech ‘machine learning’ in an attempt to identify patterns and anomalies among welfare applications that could be fraud. Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride pictured in February
DWP investigators will also be given powers to make arrests and conduct searches, as well as retrieve information from claimants’ banks (Stock Image)
Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride said last night: ‘The scale of their offending is a sobering reminder of the calculated and organised nature of fraud committed against our welfare system.’
However, human rights group Big Brother Watch said: ‘The proposed financial surveillance powers are an affront to privacy.’
The DWP said all final decisions would be made by staff members.
