Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Algorithm Wrongly Flags 200,000 for Housing Benefit Fraud
June 23, 2024
A Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) algorithm wrongly flagged over 200,000 UK housing benefit claims as high risk, resulting in unnecessary investigations. Two-thirds of these flagged claims were legitimate, causing wasted public funds and stress for claimants. Despite initial success in a pilot, the algorithm's real-world performance fell short. This incident highlights the risks of overreliance on automated systems in welfare administration.
- Alleged deployer
- department-for-work-and-pensions-(dwp)
- Alleged developer
- department-for-work-and-pensions-(dwp)
- Alleged harmed parties
- uk-general-public, uk-housing-benefit-claimants
Source
Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/738
Data source
Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).
When citing the database as a whole, please use:
McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.
Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide
We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.