𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

The UK could become a surveillance state through the growing use of AI to track our movements, a former adviser to Gordon Brown has warned. Chris Wales, who was a member of Mr Brown’s Council of Economic Advisers, has written a book about the use of AI by Spanish authorities to crack down on people accused of failing to pay their taxes, including ex-pat Brits who retired to Spain,

And he is warning that the same thing could happen here. The book, co-authored by Dr Wales and international lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, claims Spanish tax agency Agencia Tributaria has been empowered to go beyond the law. They now highlight the risk that what has become standard practice in Spain could quickly become established elsewhere.

In a chilling preview of the future, Dr Wales says that confidentiality in personal life – not just finances – will simply go out of the window and asks whether there are adequate safeguards in the UK to prevent HMRC from emulating its Spanish counterpart.

He said: “From January 1, every single invoice will go through the tax agency in Spain. The inspector can already obtain all your utility bills and will soon find out which clinic and pharmacy you use and what you buy there, which restaurants you eat at, where you purchase wine and groceries, what kind of car you have, how far you drive and where you park, what flights you take and which hotels you use.

“Information security? A thing of the past.

“I am far from being a libertarian, but I see great danger in the direction in which tax authority powers are going, particularly because the process doesn’t seem to involve our active consent. There is little parliamentary debate about it. In Spain, it is simply out of control. In the UK, let’s see.”

Dr Wales continued: “In Spain, as Bob and I show in our new book, the data harvesting carried out by Agencia Tributaria is already a nightmare for citizens.

“The tax agency has unlimited access to information and is said to use sophisticated Israeli intelligence software to find out everything about you.”

There is little comfort for UK taxpayers on the issue of secrecy, Dr Wales said. “HMRC has been using sophisticated information technology for years including an AI system called CONNECT which, as early as 2023, was said to contain more than 55 billion taxpayer-related data items.”