The federal government has trawled through sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even eBay to uncover more than $2 million in fraud already.
Centrelink has confirmed its agents have caught people incriminating themselves on their own newsfeeds about spousal or financial arrangements made to Centrelink.
In one instance Centrelink have uncovered the case of a couple who claimed to both be single in order to receive two singles payments rather than a lower couple’s payment but were caught out on Twitter announcing they were a couple and expecting and baby.
“While most people receiving welfare payments are honest and do the right thing, there is a small segment of the community who still think it is okay to cheat the system,” Mr Robert said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Taskforce Integrity will continue to collaborate with its partner agencies to meet the challenges posed by welfare fraud and ensure those individuals who deliberately defraud the system are caught,” he said.
While the government can only use this method of welfare investigation to access social media profiles available publicly the cost-effective method of investigation is said to have been embraced by the department.
In January 2015 the federal government announced that it had almost halved the amount it spent on more expensive covert surveillance to catch out welfare cheats.
Centrelink said it will continue using the method to recover the estimated $3 billion in overpaid welfare entitlements.
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