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Economic Times
13-06-2025
- Business
- Economic Times
UK migrant carers 'owed huge sums' in visa scheme 'scandal'
Live Events When Zimbabwean sales rep Zola landed a job in Britain as a care worker she was excited about forging a new career, but the mother-of-three is now homeless, jobless and trapped in rights experts say Zola is among tens of thousands of victims in an emerging national scandal that they say is a "shocking betrayal" by the 2022, Britain launched an initiative to encourage overseas workers to plug massive staffing shortages in its struggling care sector following the COVID pandemic and reports of exploitation have soared, with rogue operators charging illegal recruitment fees and promising jobs to more people than they could employ.(Join our ETNRI WhatsApp channel for all the latest updates)In a crackdown on labour abuses, the government has banned hundreds of companies from hiring migrant carers like Zola, who had already been recruited by these firms, are now in limbo and at risk of deportation unless they find a new sponsor."This should be recognised as a national crisis," said Dora-Olivia Vicol, CEO of the charity Work Rights Centre "It's a shocking betrayal of migrant workers who came here in good faith to work when Britain called for help," she told the Thomson Reuters Work Rights Centre has been inundated with calls from desperate migrant workers this year, many facing said they were owed "huge sums". The charity is calling for harsher penalties for employers who break the rules to help fund a compensation Zola's story is typical, the Thomson Reuters Foundation calculated migrant workers like her would be owed hundreds of millions of pounds in lost no access to financial support or compensation, most care workers in Zola's situation are homeless. A few are sleeping rough, while others rely on friends."This has changed our lives," said Zola, 45, who asked to use a pseudonym for fear of repercussions."The government should be held accountable. I came here through the proper channels ... and now I'm treated like someone who came through the back door."Zola, who arrived in Britain in July 2023, said she had paid 5,000 pounds ($6,752) for a company in the northern city of Leeds to sponsor her, unaware such charges are illegal. Other care workers report paying 10,000 pounds or contract promised an annual salary of 20,480 pounds, but she was barely given any shifts, forcing her to borrow money to believes her former boss had hired about 100 carers. If staff complained they were threatened with deportation, she March, the government revealed more than 470 companies had lost their sponsor licences since 2022, affecting about 40,000 migrant government set up a job finding scheme for "displaced" workers in May 2024 and is encouraging care companies to hire research by the Work Rights Centre suggests just 3.4% of those signposted to the initiative were reported to have secured a said the government response was "deeply inadequate"."I think they're trying to bury the problem. At the end of the day, all these thousands of people are victims of fraud," she said."If we were talking about thousands of people who had booked a cruise that never materialised everyone would be screaming for a compensation scheme."A spokesperson for the government said the job matching scheme was supporting thousands of care workers, but did not respond to questions about has not had any luck finding a job through the initiative or said companies providing home care often wanted driving licences, which many carers do not obstacles facing carers include difficulties in supplying references and the cost of relocating to a new said the government had opened the gates to exploitation by setting up a system that tied workers to their sponsors through their had also allowed care companies - including small inexperienced start-ups - to recruit large numbers of carers without checking they could provide sufficient workers who lose their jobs have 60 days to find a new sponsor before their visa unions and rights campaigners are calling for a new system to allow workers to switch employers within the care sector without putting their visa at risk, and an extension to the 60-day grace month, the government said it would end care worker recruitment from abroad. Critics say the move is a knee-jerk reaction to the rise of anti-immigrant party Reform UK Jane Townson, CEO of the Homecare Association which represents domiciliary care providers, said the decision was shortsighted as there were still more than 130,000 said a lack of funding was a major home care services are purchased by local councils or the health service, but Townson said many public bodies did not pay care providers enough to even cover their labour costs at the minimum were forced to compete for contracts which were awarded to the lowest bidder, squeezing out good she said councils were driving down prices due to inadequate government funding."What we've got is state-sponsored labour exploitation," she added. "This is a public scandal."The government spokesperson said it had boosted social care funding this year and would introduce a fair pay agreement for care staff under broader Townson said the pay agreement was a long way off and would not work without a big injection of cash.
Time of India
13-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
UK migrant carers 'owed huge sums' in visa scheme 'scandal'
Live Events When Zimbabwean sales rep Zola landed a job in Britain as a care worker she was excited about forging a new career, but the mother-of-three is now homeless, jobless and trapped in rights experts say Zola is among tens of thousands of victims in an emerging national scandal that they say is a "shocking betrayal" by the 2022, Britain launched an initiative to encourage overseas workers to plug massive staffing shortages in its struggling care sector following the COVID pandemic and reports of exploitation have soared, with rogue operators charging illegal recruitment fees and promising jobs to more people than they could employ.(Join our ETNRI WhatsApp channel for all the latest updates)In a crackdown on labour abuses, the government has banned hundreds of companies from hiring migrant carers like Zola, who had already been recruited by these firms, are now in limbo and at risk of deportation unless they find a new sponsor."This should be recognised as a national crisis," said Dora-Olivia Vicol, CEO of the charity Work Rights Centre "It's a shocking betrayal of migrant workers who came here in good faith to work when Britain called for help," she told the Thomson Reuters Work Rights Centre has been inundated with calls from desperate migrant workers this year, many facing said they were owed "huge sums". The charity is calling for harsher penalties for employers who break the rules to help fund a compensation Zola's story is typical, the Thomson Reuters Foundation calculated migrant workers like her would be owed hundreds of millions of pounds in lost no access to financial support or compensation, most care workers in Zola's situation are homeless. A few are sleeping rough, while others rely on friends."This has changed our lives," said Zola, 45, who asked to use a pseudonym for fear of repercussions."The government should be held accountable. I came here through the proper channels ... and now I'm treated like someone who came through the back door."Zola, who arrived in Britain in July 2023, said she had paid 5,000 pounds ($6,752) for a company in the northern city of Leeds to sponsor her, unaware such charges are illegal. Other care workers report paying 10,000 pounds or contract promised an annual salary of 20,480 pounds, but she was barely given any shifts, forcing her to borrow money to believes her former boss had hired about 100 carers. If staff complained they were threatened with deportation, she March, the government revealed more than 470 companies had lost their sponsor licences since 2022, affecting about 40,000 migrant government set up a job finding scheme for "displaced" workers in May 2024 and is encouraging care companies to hire research by the Work Rights Centre suggests just 3.4% of those signposted to the initiative were reported to have secured a said the government response was "deeply inadequate"."I think they're trying to bury the problem. At the end of the day, all these thousands of people are victims of fraud," she said."If we were talking about thousands of people who had booked a cruise that never materialised everyone would be screaming for a compensation scheme."A spokesperson for the government said the job matching scheme was supporting thousands of care workers, but did not respond to questions about has not had any luck finding a job through the initiative or said companies providing home care often wanted driving licences, which many carers do not obstacles facing carers include difficulties in supplying references and the cost of relocating to a new said the government had opened the gates to exploitation by setting up a system that tied workers to their sponsors through their had also allowed care companies - including small inexperienced start-ups - to recruit large numbers of carers without checking they could provide sufficient workers who lose their jobs have 60 days to find a new sponsor before their visa unions and rights campaigners are calling for a new system to allow workers to switch employers within the care sector without putting their visa at risk, and an extension to the 60-day grace month, the government said it would end care worker recruitment from abroad. Critics say the move is a knee-jerk reaction to the rise of anti-immigrant party Reform UK Jane Townson, CEO of the Homecare Association which represents domiciliary care providers, said the decision was shortsighted as there were still more than 130,000 said a lack of funding was a major home care services are purchased by local councils or the health service, but Townson said many public bodies did not pay care providers enough to even cover their labour costs at the minimum were forced to compete for contracts which were awarded to the lowest bidder, squeezing out good she said councils were driving down prices due to inadequate government funding."What we've got is state-sponsored labour exploitation," she added. "This is a public scandal."The government spokesperson said it had boosted social care funding this year and would introduce a fair pay agreement for care staff under broader Townson said the pay agreement was a long way off and would not work without a big injection of cash.
Time of India
15-05-2025
- Time of India
Deep love or deepfake? Dating in the time of AI
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads MANIPULATION AND LIES Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads 'AI ARMS RACE' B eth Hyland thought she had met the love of her life on Tinder In reality, the Michigan-based administrative assistant had been manipulated by an online scam artist who posed as a French man named 'Richard', used deepfake video on Skype calls and posted photos of another man to pull off his con.A 'deepfake' is manipulated video or audio made using artificial intelligence (AI) to look and sound real. They are often difficult to detect without specialised a matter of months, Hyland, 53, had taken out loans totalling $26,000, sent 'Richard' the money, and fallen prey to a classic case of romance baiting or pig butchering, named for the exploitative way in which scammers cultivate their victims.A projected 8 million deepfakes will be shared worldwide in 2025, up from 500,000 in 2023, says the British a fifth of those will be part of romance scams , according to a January report from cyber firm McAfee."It's like grieving a death," Hyland told the Thomson Reuters Foundation."When I saw him on video, it was the same as the pictures he had been sending me. He looked a little fuzzy, but I didn't know about deepfakes," she lives in Portage, about 230 km west of Detroit, and had been divorced for four years when she began dating matched on Tinder with a man whose profile seemed to complement hers she says this 'perfect match' was likely orchestrated.'Richard' said he was born in Paris but lived in Indiana and worked as a freelance project manager for a construction company that required a lot of travel, including to of emotional manipulation, lies, fake photos and AI-doctored Skype calls followed. The scammer pledged his undying love but had myriad reasons to miss every potential after they matched, 'Richard' convinced Hyland that he needed her help to pay for a lawyer and a translator in Qatar."I told him I was gonna take out loans and he started crying, telling me no one's ever loved him like this before," said Hyland in an online 'Richard' kept asking for more money and when Hyland eventually told her financial advisor what was happening, he said she was most likely the victim of a romance scam."I couldn't believe it, but I couldn't ignore it," said confronted 'Richard'; he initially denied it all but then went silent when Hyland asked him to "prove her wrong" and return her told Hyland they could not take her case further because there was no "coercion, threat or force involved", according to a letter from Portage's director of public safety, seen by the Thomson Reuters office of public safety - which oversees both the police and fire services - did not respond to a request for an email sent to Hyland after she flagged the scammer's account to Tinder, which was seen by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the company said it removes users who violate their terms of service or Tinder said it could not share the outcome of the investigation due to privacy reasons, it said Hyland's report was "evaluated" and "actioned in accordance with our policies".A Tinder spokesperson said the company has "zero tolerance" of fraudsters and uses AI to root our potential scammers and warn its users, as well as offering factsheets on romance March, Hyland attended a U.S. Senate committee hearing when a bill was introduced to require dating apps to remove scammers and notify users who interact with fake senator proposing the bill said Hyland's story showed why the legislation was general, dating apps do not notify users who have communicated with a scammer once the fraudster's account has been removed or issue alerts about how to avoid being scammed, as required in the proposed new United States reported more than $4 billion in losses to pig-butchering scams in 2023, according to the which owns Skype, directed the Thomson Reuters Foundation to blog posts informing users how to prevent romance scams and steps it had taken to tackle AI-generated content, such as adding watermarks to company did not provide further Lane-Sellers, a director of fraud and identity at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, said only 7% of scams are reported, with victims often held back by Abraham, managing director of the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, a Netherlands-based organisation to protect consumers, said humans won't be able to detect manipulated media for long."In two or three years, it will be AI against AI," he said."[Software exists] that can follow your conversation - looking at the eyes, if they're blinking - these are giveaways that something is going on that humans can't see, but software can."Lane-Sellers from LexisNexis Risk Solutions described it as an AI "arms race" between scammers and anti-fraud companies trying to protect consumers and Whittle, an AI expert at Salford Business School in northern England, said he expects future deepfake detection technology will be built in by hardware makers such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft who can access users' Apple nor Google responded to requests for comment on how they protect consumers against deepfakes, or on future product said the real challenge was to catch the scammers, who often work in different countries to those they her dead end, Hyland still believes it is good to report scams and help authorities crack down on she wants scam victims to know it is not their fault."I've learned terminology ... we don't lose (money) or give it away - it's stolen. We don't fall for scams - we're manipulated and victimised.
