DWP

Hi Gunther,

I have never seen any evidence that DWP can access your internet browsing history or indeed anything else on your device.

It is worth mentioning though that they can, like everyone can, access your public social media (Facebook, twitter, etc.). Whether they do access this, I don’t know but it is sensible to consider what they might see if they were to look.

I would certainly think that they might use social media to gather evidence of benefit fraud.

I hope this helps.

Regards
Pete

Hi Gunther,

I just realised that you may have been asking whether DWP could see your internet history as part of a fraud inquiry.

If that is what you were asking, then yes they do have the right to.

Senior Executive Officers in Fraud and Error Services at the DWP will be able to see a list of every website claimants have visited in the past year, although the details will not include the individual pages that claimants have visited on a particular website.

Other agencies granted access to internet histories include:

Department for Transport
Department of Health
HMRC
Ministry of Justice
Ofcom

Sorry if I misunderstood your original question.

Regards
Pete