Social Security Benefits

(asked on 2nd September 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she will introduce an email address to allow people to send their application for benefits electronically.


Answered by
Mims Davies Portrait
Mims Davies
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 6th September 2019

There are no plans to introduce email as a secure method of exchanging citizen information.

DWP’s security policy defines how we communicate with claimants using email and ensures DWP is vigilant to risks such as data breaches and data loss as well as the possible corruption of DWP’s IT systems.

Once information leaves DWP’s secure systems there is a risk that information may be subsequently lost, manipulated or stolen. We take positive steps to minimise these and other risks, such as limiting the exchange of personal information using email.

We do communicate with disabled claimants using email as a reasonable adjustment where this best meets their communication needs. As there are additional security risks associated with using email we always make sure that the disabled customer is aware of the risk of potential data loss before we put this solution in place.

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