Criminality rears its head in the heart of the Coalition government YET AGAIN! Not only did the DWP break both UK and EU law by running (fake) psychometric tests on jobseekers without getting informed consent, but the so-called ‘Nudge Unit’ that devised the project has STOLEN the test from its US creators. These people didn’t get permission to use the questions and are now facing legal action from abroad. One wonders if the government will be able to squash that kind of litigation, in the same way some of us fear it does with home-grown cases!
This will be brief, as I’m just making a quick stop on the motorway. The saga of the fake psychometric ‘test’, which the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has been forcing jobseekers to take under threat of losing their benefits, has just taken a very interesting turn.
Apparently, the US creators of the original test of 150 or so questions, from which the 48 questions for the DWP’s bogus test were taken, have read my blog and the Guardian article that spun off from it, and are going ballistic.
Because the DWP’s ‘nudge unit’ that devised the test as a means of cynically manipulating jobseekers, did not bother to get permission to use the questions in their ‘randomised control trial’ of its effects on hapless jobseekers.
They stole it. And the owners are livid about that, and about how they’ve used the ‘test’ without any of the usual…
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Mike Sivier's blog 
No less than they deserve,like so many of their party faithful,should be prosecuted.
Legal action? Serves ’em bloody well right! However, fed up paying for their myriad mistakes. Whoever stole it, pay the settlement out of your own damn pocket!
Unfortunately, any fine imposed will be paid, as usual, by the British taxpayer
I heard on The UK Column Live that they intend to sell psychometric test course!
Is this government deliberately trying to hike up the benefits bill with litigation costs, so that they can anger the tax payer enough to cut welfare again to the poorest. The whole lot of them should be put up against a wall and shot.
Now that’s a comment I can support unreservedly!
Here, bloody here.
Please do not ignore the pun it is completely intentional.
If the mainstream TV news channels don’t report this scandal we should get out there on the streets and make them listen. I can’t begin to describe how angry this makes me!!
And if you need more convincing of how naff the Nudge lot are, check out this paper they wrote about how to conduct randomised trials. In it they claim that by doing these trials they can ‘prove’ their back to work interventions are the only factor involved in getting people jobs. They completely ignore any real social factors such as availability of jobs, geographical area, wage rates, travel costs, childcare costs or whether its full or part time or temporary work. No self respecting social scientist would put their name to this rubbish. I’m with guy fawkes and the firing squad idea.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/test-learn-adapt-developing-public-policy-with-randomised-controlled-trials
Haha i love it its fail after fail for them even hardcore tory voters are starting to wonder
After the “quash” of Britain’s high court ruling, on “Diego Garcia”, is there ACTUALLY a QUESTION about “the bottom line”? The U.$. & U.K._ DISGU$TING “BED-BUD$”!
Am I in a dream? The stuff this government gets up to would have made a brilliant satirical comedy based on some faraway banana republic.
Here is one point that I haven’t seen mentioned. If some analyses of the DWP test’s computational abilities are correct, then the original test was transformed into a psychological trial, not a test of one person’s personality. Given that, we have not only a case of copyright infringement, but of misuse to test a sample population of persons without their informed consent.
Yes – that was the issue a couple of days ago. This is the latest problem with it.