ABSTRACT
This chapter considers issues surrounding social welfare and public health. It describes the history of surveillance in terms of social welfare and the welfare state before considering social sorting, care and detection of welfare fraud. The Australian government has reputedly gone further than this, choosing to monitor the social media accounts of social welfare recipients to determine their relationship status and their income in order to uncover fraud. Assuming that the purpose of welfare surveillance is one of care, the purpose is to target individuals and groups with goal of reversing social inequality. The surveillance will enable state to focus resources effectively to help most disadvantaged in society. In an extreme case, welfare housing for recovering drug addicts in Australia was reviewed by Cameron Parsell, who found a complex reaction to the levels of surveillance experienced. The suspicion of fraud on part of welfare claimant is therefore likely to lead to even higher levels of surveillance than they already experience.
