The head of the Department of Human Services has blamed the “robo debt” scandal largely on welfare recipients’ failure to engage with Centrelink. It sent 217,403 letters between July and December demanding explanations from welfare recipients, 36,305 of which did not result in a debt. It removes human oversight over that data-matching process and allows it to automatically generate letters demanding an explanation from welfare recipients. Campbell blamed the problems with the system on a failure of welfare recipients to engage with those letters or other communications from the department. She said Acoss’s evidence showed how the system had reversed the onus of proof onto the welfare recipients to prove they did not owe a debt.

Source: The Guardian March 08, 2017 00:20 UTC