Benefit fraudsters beware! The ‘robot cops’ are after you
ARTIFICIAL intelligence is to be used to hunt down and expose benefit fraudsters who cheat taxpayers of millions of pounds.
The ‘smart robot’ investigators – high-tech computer programs – will be set to work to thwart mass benefit fraudsters.
Ministers unveiled the move last night, boasting that the sophisticated computer algorithms will detect fake identity cloning techniques and unmask organised gangs – not just individual benefit cheats.
Critics said the new AI crackdown was long overdue, with benefit fraud running at record levels of nearly £2.1billion a year.
Work and Pensions Secretary David Gauke said the new technology was being introduced to ‘protect taxpayers’ money’.
He added: ‘We are already dealing with individuals who are wrongly claiming welfare payments and we now hope to further clamp down on organised crime gangs. Our fraud investigators work tirelessly to bring all criminals to justice.’
Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) officials said the computer systems were designed to enable specialist investigators to progress from catching individual benefit cheats to snaring entire gangs.
They cited a case where a six-strong gang behind a £2.8million benefit fraud, involving falsely obtained National Insurance numbers to claim handouts over seven years, was brought to justice last year. The gang was not caught by the use of AI, officials said, but was the sort of organised crime that should be exposed by the new technology. The computer programs search for anomalies in billions of items of data. Fraudsters who share a seemingly innocuous connection – such as the same phone number or similar handwriting when filling out different false claims – would be flagged up by the new technology. The programs will scan right across the benefit system, including the controversial new Universal Credit as well as Jobseeker’s Allowance and the Personal Independent Payments.
Department officials insisted last night that the new computer checks posed no privacy problems.
One said: ‘It won’t go through Facebook pages and so on, but through DWP claims systems so there are no privacy concerns. It will also just be trained investigators who use it.’
They also insisted there was no extra cost because the new anti-fraud detection system had been developed and set up by the DWP’s own artificial intelligence team.
The new crackdown comes just weeks after it emerged that benefit fraud was running at the equivalent of £40million a week, swallowing up almost £2.1 billion of the DWP’s annual budget of £174 billion.
The DWP said part of the reason reported fraud had risen was because of better detection.