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The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian

Automating poverty

A series exploring how our governments use AI to target the vulnerable 

29 November 2019

  • FILE PHOTO: A woman goes through the process of finger scanning for the UID database system, also known as Aadhaar, at a registration centre in New Delhi<br>FILE PHOTO: A woman goes through the process of finger scanning for the Unique Identification (UID) database system, also known as Aadhaar, at a registration centre in New Delhi, India, January 17, 2018. To match Insight INDIA-ELECTION/STARVATION REUTERS/Saumya Khandelwal/File photo

    Support the Guardian – and help us highlight the rise of digital inequality

    Automating Poverty, our year-long project about the takeover of welfare systems by algorithms and AI, was funded with reader donations raised last year

23 November 2019

  • Ed-AI-poverty FINAL!!

    Reporting on automated poverty: how tech is punishing the poor

    Guardian US reporters reflect on our recent series examining the shadowy emergence of the ‘digital welfare state’

21 October 2019

  • DWP

    The digital welfare state: Chips with Everything podcast

    How and why the Department for Work and Pensions in the UK is increasing investment in testing artificial intelligence to assess benefits claims

17 October 2019

  • Program code with eye and abstract technology background with server racks and many lights

    Benefits of ‘welfare robots’ and the need for human oversight

    Letters: Simon McKinnon of the DWP, Tom Symons of Nesta and Pat McCarthy respond to articles on the use of artificial intelligence in managing benefit claims

16 October 2019

  • Keelan, 26 has experienced mental health issues and has had his Centrelink payments suspended many times due to problems with the automated payment system. 23 September 2019.

    The automated system leaving welfare recipients cut off with nowhere to turn

    In 12 months, Australian welfare payments were stopped an extra 1m times thanks to automated technologies. Money is stopped first and questions asked later, causing untold misery
  • A villager goes through the process of eye scanning for UID database system at an enrolment centre at Merta district in Rajasthan<br>A villager goes through the process of eye scanning for Unique Identification (UID) database system at an enrolment centre at Merta district in the desert Indian state of Rajasthan February 21, 2013.In a more ambitious version of programmes that have slashed poverty in Brazil and Mexico, the Indian government has begun to use the UID database, known as Aadhaar, to make direct cash transfers to the poor, in an attempt to cut out frauds who siphon billions of dollars from welfare schemes. Picture taken February 21, 2013. REUTERS/Mansi Thapliyal (INDIA - Tags: BUSINESS SOCIETY POVERTY SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY)

    How a glitch in India's biometric welfare system can be lethal

    Claimants are given a 12-digit number linked to their data, and if something goes wrong they can be refused food
  • Bags of food ready for people who drop in at Second Harvest Food Bank in San Jose, California, November 14th, 2017. Second Harvest Food Bank recently produced a study that finds one in four in Silicon Valley is 'food insecure' meaning they have anxiety about paying for food, skip meals, can't afford to feed their family, have had to borrow money to buy food, don't have access to a kitchen...

    ‘Digital welfare state’: big tech allowed to target and surveil the poor, UN is warned

    UN’s rapporteur on extreme poverty says in devastating account big tech companies are being allowed to go unregulated in ‘human rights free-zones’

15 October 2019

  • The government buildings in Newcastle where the DWP digital team are based.

    The Guardian view on automating poverty: OK computers?

  • A view over Bristol in summer

    How Bristol assesses citizens' risk of harm – using an algorithm

  • An eye behind glasses looking at a blue screen with numbers on it

    One in three councils using algorithms to make welfare decisions

  • Dreama Richardson, 72, at her home in Steger, Illinois.

    Zombie debts are hounding struggling Americans. Will you be next?

14 October 2019

  • The government buildings in Gateshead where the DWP digital team are based. The DWP refused freedom of information requests to explain how it gathers data on citizens.

    Benefits system automation could plunge claimants deeper into poverty

    DWP spending millions on ‘intelligent automation garage’ to develop welfare robots to replace humans
  • Julian Jennings is among 1.5 million people in the UK with learning difficulties. Campaigners warn that vulnerable claimants risk being forgotten in the government’s push to automate the benefits system.

    Computer says no: the people trapped in universal credit's 'black hole'

    Vulnerable claimants already reporting problems, even before further DWP digital transformation
  • ,

    Digital dystopia: how algorithms punish the poor

    In an exclusive global series, the Guardian lays bare the tech revolution transforming the welfare system worldwide – while penalising the most vulnerable
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