The Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, said he is seeking an urgent meeting over Government plans to use credit rating agencies to root out benefit cheats. He wants to discuss the proposals with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) amid concerns over State snooping and the misuse of personal data.
The statement comes after David Cameron announced that private firms could be brought in to help in an "uncompromising crackdown" on benefit cheats to be unveiled in the autumn.
The Prime Minister said reducing the £5.2 billion annual cost of fraud and error would be the "first and deepest" cut in public spending and that credit rating agencies could be recruited to help identify false claims.
However, he insisted people should not be concerned and said:
"If you are entitled to welfare and can claim it, then you should claim it, but if you are not entitled to it you should not get and should not claim it.
"Private companies use all sorts of different means to make sure they are not defrauded, why should the State be any different?
"In the end it's taxpayers' money. People going out to work hard every day do not pay their taxes so that someone can basically claim it fraudulently.
"That is not right, it is not fair and I want to stop it."
While suggesting it was fine to use credit rating agencies to establish someone's identity, Mr Graham told BBC2's Newsnight:
"If it goes beyond that and it starts being really intrusive and asking questions about people's spending habits rather than just whether they are who they say they are, then that's something that's got to be explored with the Information Commissioner.
"I've got responsibilities under the Data Protection Act and I'm not convinced from what I've heard that there aren't issues here that we need to explore.
"So I would like an urgent meeting with the Department of Work and Pensions to find out what is going on."
Writing in the Manchester Evening News, the Prime Minister said tougher penalties, more prosecutions, measures to encourage others to shop cheats and greater efforts to recover "stolen" payments would be included in the autumn reforms.
The finance and trading standards teams at the Highland Council have been alerted to the fact that residents are being targeted by a Council Tax rebate scam.
The scam involves attempts by callers to obtain bank details over the telephone, on the false promise of being entitled to receive a rebate on their Council Tax payments.
The Council's finance service has made it clear that any communication with Council Tax payers about something like a rebate would be in writing and they would also not 'cold call' the public in this way to ask for bank details.
Anyone receiving such an unsolicited call is advised to end the call immediately and under no circumstances to give any personal details to the caller.
Editorial Note
We are not aware of the scam operating in other areas. However, we thought it useful to include this report as an alert to the possibility of the scam spreading elsewhere.
