Benefits lie detector gets council thumbs up

The controversial use of lie-detector technology to weed out fraudulent benefit claims has been given the thumbs up by a group of local government personnel.

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According to a survey by public sector software company Capita of local government officers at the Institute of Revenues Rating and Valuation Conference at the end of September, 77 per cent of respondents said voice risk analysis technology can help improve the revenue and benefits verification process.

The survey found a high level of confidence among respondents that citizen self-service benchmarks for government agencies are being met, with 81 per cent saying their local authorities are offering 24/7 payment services to customers.

More than half said their local authorities were complying with the Payment Card Industry Security Standard, developed by credit card companies to help prevent credit card fraud. However, 20 per cent of the sample were not aware of the standard.