Forums Forums Local News Liverpool council’s anti-fraud teams

Do people agree with this and do you think that this should be done on the wirral?




LIVERPOOL council snoops are to go undercover on Facebook and Twitter to try to snare benefit fraudsters and rogue traders.

They say the social networking sites can provide “priceless” information which could lead to convictions and that because such sites are still in their infancy they are not covered by legislation which makes authorities request permission from the courts to investigate.

But the council has been warned by the Office of the Surveillance Commissioner that if the undercover officer has any contact other than asking to be a friend in order to see what people are posting it may need permission under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIPA) act.

Officers are also to be given advice that they would need to apply for legal clearance if they wanted to converse with the person, which in law would make the suspect a “covert human intelligence source” – although they would not know they were incriminating themselves.”




Investigators will be schooled in how to concoct “pre-planned cover stories” if their identity is questioned while they are gathering information.

A report going to the council next week states “there is no doubt that social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter can provide priceless evidence to services such as the benefit fraud team and Trading Standards.

“For instance, a benefit fraud officer may be able to use them to identify whether an undeclared adult is living at an address where a discount for sole occupancy is being claimed or a Trading Standards officer may be able to obtain names of people involved in the distribution and sale of counterfeit goods.”

TBH I couldnt careless as long as they catch them.

yeah people are silly when they put stuff on facebook, the police can gather so much evidence and profile a person its unreal and youtube aswell with all these little gangsta wannabee's

+1

1984 - another step nearer to Big Brother
Who watches the watchers, I'd like to know.

It's weird how those who are cheating the system cry foul when somebody catches up with them using analysis techniques. Heard a bad one yesterday about someone (and there's probably loads of them out there) who rents off a housing association and sub-lets the property and is now so well off they can move into a very salubrious area and are living off the fat of the land. All power to the fraud squads elbow.

There's a guy who owns two chip shops, asked a friend of mine to sign some benefit forms to say he lived in the property he sub-lets. It didn't get signed but a telephone call was made

(not around here btw)

without being look at as racist there is a lot of foreign people who tend to do this and bring workers over and allow them to live in their properties.

I don't care what benefit fraud teams do, they can sit outside the house all day and night, they can put tracking devices on suspects cars, so long as they catch the scumbags and throw them in prison!

I've always believed that whilst on benefits, people should be made to sign a disclaimer, that should suspicion arise regarding the legibility of their claim, the person accepts that fraud-teams can and will go out of their way, and to a degree, invade the suspects privacy, to find out whether or not THEY MAY BE BREAKING THE LAW. They should also be at the mercy of randomly-chosen spot-checks.

If they are found not to be, there is no problem is there? And for all the privacy and human-rights brigade, the claimants have a choice to claim benefits, just like those who oppose the work-programme, citing reasons like "its wrong to pay them to work for like £1.50 an hour" and "why should I be made to work" etc... well they don't need to take mine and ever other taxpayers money, they can refuse to do so and live by their own means (or even do the unthinkable and get a job lol).

sooner the better,its about time!

totally right matt. there needs jusge reforms into the live for free benefit system and hopefully under the new government this will be addressed

that should of said "huge"

Personally i think its morally corrupt of liverpool council to spy on peoples facebook pages, especially after all the phone hacking scandal which seems to have caused so much controversy.

Ok i dont condone people cheating the benefits system but why should honest people who are down on their luck in this recession be subjected to people snooping into their personal lives . How about people on disability, single mums etc. dont they deserve some privacy?

Also im not sure how spying on a persons facebook page is going to catch rougue traders.

i think its a slippery slope for society if this sort of practice is allowed.

I do find it quite interesting that the people in favour of the snooping on Housing Benefit Fraud claimants do not make their opinions known when it is multinational companies evading tax.

Housing Benefit fraud amounts to about £1.1 billion a year according to Government. We spend a shed load of money to cut this down. In fact, we spend more than we actually save trying to reduce it!

But compare that to HMRC letting Vodafone off a £6 billion tax bill this year for no reason. Compare that to Sir Phillip Green putting Top Shop and other companies in his wife's name to save £300 million in tax on their dividend this year (I'm assuming that £900 million wasn't enough for them to live on this year).

And of course compare that to us bailing the banks out to the tune of £900 billion in cash and asset support. The banks who paid £7 billion out in bonuses (on top of salary) in this financial year.

Sort of makes us complaining about the little people somewhat silly...