Obtaining financial advantage against Centrelink fraud offence

It has been revealed that Services Australia utilises telecommunications metadata and software which bypasses account passwords in order to investigate if welfare recipients are in 'secret' relationships whilst claiming single payment rates to crack down on Centrelink fraud claims.

Following the 'robo-debt' scandal, which saw inaccurate debts unlawfully pursued against recipients by the agency, Centrelink was stripped of its ability to seek direct access to phone databases in 2015.

However, it can still request for the Australian Federal Police to access metadata, in the case of suspected fraud.

The agency reports that this will mainly occur in cases where tertiary students or jobseekers are suspected of claiming single rate payments whilst they are actually in a relationship.