Since the inception of the internet, technological advances intended to benefit mankind have been turned on the population in order to benefit the state. In recent years, investigatory powers laws have sanctioned the state to collect information about us in bulk, retain our internet connection records and intercept our personal messages, all through digital proxies. Now, this concept of the corporate actor being used as an arm of the state for the purposes of surveillance is being extended to the financial sphere.

Tomorrow, a bill is returning to the House of Lords which could grant the Government extraordinary new financial surveillance powers. Amendments to the largely under-scrutinised Data Protection and Digital Information Bill were announced in November of last year, giving banks powers to monitor the accounts of private citizens under the premise of searching for fraud and error in the welfare system. Banks would then be compelled to flag individuals who meet unspecified criteria to the Government. Given the outrageous scale of the proposals, there is good reason why Conservative legislators would hope that they might fall under the radar.

Tackling fraud and welfare fraud is a legitimate aim, yet the Government has measures at its disposal to combat this problem at a targeted level, based on suspicion under existing powers. These proposals perpetuate what is becoming a growing trend when it comes to surveillance powers — that the state sees compromising the privacy of millions of innocent people as a legitimate means to an end, only this time the end is not combating terrorism but the maladministration of benefits.