Single mothers placed on a compulsory welfare program for disadvantaged parents allege they were pressured into allowing private job service providers to collect their sensitive information.
The program is compulsory for those who want to receive parenting payments and are considered “disadvantaged”, but some case workers have told participants that they would have their payments cut if they refused to sign the form and effectively hand over their private and sensitive information.
While is standard practice for welfare recipients to be asked to sign privacy consent and notification forms, the chairman of the Australian Privacy Foundation, David Vaile, noted that the women felt they needed to sign the form in order to keep receiving their payments, which Vaile describes as ‘bad consent’.