The Home Office has reached an agreement with Deliveroo and Uber Eats to suspend more delivery riders caught sharing their account with migrants without the right to work in Britain.
To combat illegal work, the delivery companies will be given new information about the locations of hotels for asylum seekers.
Under current security measures, delivery riders who share their accounts with migrants that do not have the right to work will be suspended. The new agreement, however, will allow more people to be caught.
Deliveroo’s, Just Eat’s and Uber Eats’ efforts to crack down on illegal account-sharing through real-time checks of identity and right to work have resulted in thousands being removed from their platforms.
The new agreement will empower food couriers to detect patterns of abuse, identify unauthorised accounts sharing, and suspend quickly the accounts.
This move is in line with the commitments that were made by firms at a roundtable held last month. These included increased facial verification checks, fraud detection tools and only allowing verified users to access their platforms.
Yvette Cooper, Home Secretary said: “Illegal work undermines honest businesses, exploits individuals who are vulnerable and fuels organized immigration crime.” We are closing loopholes by enhancing data sharing between delivery companies and ourselves.
She said that since Labour took power, there have been 50% more raids and arrests of illegal workers.
Eddy Montgomery, director for enforcement, compliance, and crime, at the Home Office said that this next step in coordinating with delivery firms would help us to target those who are seeking to work illegally and exploit their status as UK citizens in the gig-economy.
“My teams will carry out increased enforcement activities across the UK and I welcome this new tool to disrupt and end the abuse of our Immigration System.”
Uber Eats’ spokesperson stated: “Uber Eats will continue to work closely with the Home Office to combat illegal work. We’ve introduced a variety of cutting-edge detection tools that can find and remove fake accounts. We constantly review our tools to find new ways to detect people trying to work illegally and to take action.
Deliveroo stated: “Deliveroo is leading the industry in introducing new security measures that prevent abuse of our platform. We are also tackling sophisticated criminals who seek to exploit the systems of all delivery platforms. We are committed to working together with the government to continue fighting illegal work.
Just Eat’s spokesperson stated: “Just Eat will take action against any illegal work via our platform. We continue to spend significant resources on strengthening our systems to combat abuse by individuals or organised criminal groups trying to evade the right-to-work laws. We work closely with our industry partners and the Home Office to close any loopholes that exist in industry checks. This includes data sharing, enforcement and collaboration.
Emma Brooksbank of Freeths Immigration partner said that the firm expected this strategy to be ineffective. She stated: “The intent is for Deliveroo to cancel accounts that are repeatedly active in areas of high risk, such as around asylum seekers hotels. Illegal workers will be able to easily bypass this restriction in order to avoid detection and make the data sharing agreement pointless.
“Companies such as these gig economy operators, which are largely unregulated and do not adhere to the normal right-to-work penalty of PS60,000 for each illegal worker, do not apply.” These companies have no incentive to improve their practices.
“Gig economy companies don’t know who uses their app and who engages with their customers using their brand name. This makes illegal work easy, effortless and undetectable. It also acts as an attraction for illegal migrants who continue to arrive on small boats in France.
“The government must adopt a more aggressive approach.” Companies could use real-time facial identification when accepting jobs on the app. These companies should never pay illegal workers for the work they do. They should also be held accountable for account sharing and heavily fined. Directors should be disqualified if they facilitate illegal work.
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