Trump Administration Wants to Monitor Disability Recipients’ Social Media Accounts

“The Trump administration is working on a proposal that would allow it to monitor the social media accounts of disability benefit recipients in an effort to crack down on fraudulent disability claims.

In its budget request last year, Social Security said it would investigate whether monitoring social media accounts could “increase program integrity and expedite the identification of fraud,” according to The New York Times, which first reported on the proposal. Since then, the White House has been working with officials to further outline the proposed program, sources told the Times.”

“The idea is to use disability recipients’ accounts to make sure they are actually disabled. For example, a person claiming disability for a debilitating back injury, but who posted a picture of themselves snowboarding, could raise flags.”