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Content type: Long Read
This research is the result of a collaboration between Grace Tillyard, a doctoral researcher in the Media, Communications and Cultural Studies department at Goldsmiths College, London, and Privacy International.
Social Protection Systems in the Digital Age
In the digital age, governments across the world are building technologically integrated programmes to allow citizens to access welfare payments. While smart and digital technologies hold the potential to streamline administrative…
Content type: News & Analysis
Today, the British Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced a partnership between the NHS and Amazon to use the NHS’s website content as the source for the answer given to medical question, such as “Alexa, how do I treat a migraine?”
While we welcome Amazon’s use of a trusted source of information for medical queries, we are however extremely concerned about the nature and the implications of this partnership. Amazon is a company with a worrying track record when it comes to the way they…
Content type: Examples
In Israel, the National Insurance Institute – in charge of granting benefits – eventually dropped a tender that had caused outrage in the country after being uncovered by Haaretz and Channel 13. The tender revealed the NII was trying to collect online data about benefits claimants – including from social media – to detect cases of frauds. The tender used wheelchair users as an example, suggesting that finding pictures of alleged wheelchair users using bikes on social media could contribute to…
Content type: Examples
The rise of social media has also been a game changer in the tracking of benefits claimants. In the UK in 2019, a woman was jailed after she was jailed for five months after pictures of her partying in Ibiza emerged on social media. She had previously sued the NHS for £2.5 million, after surviving a botched operation. She had argued the operation had left her disabled and the “shadow of a former self” but judges argued that the pictures suggested otherwise.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/…
Content type: Examples
The rise of social media has also been a game changer in the tracking of benefits claimants. Back in 2009, the case of Nathalie Blanchard a woman in Quebec who had lost her disability insurance benefits for depression because she looked “too happy” on her Facebook pictures had made the news.
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/AheadoftheCurve/woman-loses-insurance-benefits-facebook-pics/story?id=9154741
Author: Ki Mae Heussner
Publication: ABC News