For our April meetup we're welcoming two guest speakers:



Ruth Coustick-Deal - Supporter Officer for the Open Rights Group will be discussing the survellience of jobseekers and the privacy implications.



A guest speaker from refuted.org.uk will also be attending to discuss simple and practical ways to mitigate against State sponsored privacy and surveillance intrusion through Universal Jobmatch (UJ). Focusing upon the experience of people claiming benefits being mandated to upload a Public CV and create a personal Profile on UJ or face a loss of benefits for up to 3 years for refusing to do so. Practical UJ rights based information can be found at http://refuted.org.uk/jobmatch/ with early UJ analysis by refuted at https://zine.openrightsgroup.org/features/2012/looking-for-a-job-goes-orwellian



6:30pm for a 7pm start.



Job-seekers claiming Job Seeker's Allowance can be required to use the Government's online recruitment search site 'Universal Jobmatch'. This facility is more than just a website; it's a tool that Job Centre advisors can use to monitor job hunting and enforce sanctions.



There are 2 major issues around the use of this site:



1. It is operating as a system for monitoring vulnerable citizens, noting down job searches made, time spent on the site, jobs applied for and those turned down.



2. There are data insecurities associated with the site, enabling a situation where 50% of ads are fraudulent, and bogus employers are accessing private data.



Unlike other recruitment services or search engines, job seekers don't always have a choice to pick a better service.



We'll be discussing more about what Universal Jobmatch is and how this system of surveillance is having a real effect on people's lives.