‘Serious concerns’ about DWP’s use of AI to read correspondence from benefit claimants

White mail system handles highly sensitive personal data' and people not told it is processing their information

• AI prototypes for UK welfare system dropped as officials lament false starts'

When your mailbag brims with 25,000 letters and emails every day, deciding which to answer first is daunting. When lurking within are pleas for help from some of the country's most vulnerable people, the stakes only get higher.

That is the challenge facing the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) as correspondence floods in from benefit applicants and claimants - of which there are more than 20 million, including pensioners, in the UK. The DWP thinks it may have found a solution in using artificial intelligence to read it all first - including handwritten missives.