Fake registrations lock out homeless from social services

A new electronic registration system has been launched this year to control the use of social services for the homeless people more efficiently. The system called KENYSZI was aimed to prevent exploitation of social services from the users side, but created many abuses on the side of the suppliers. Different kinds of social services like meals, bath or administration are available in different institutions what makes impossible to use one service after being registered at another place. In real life it means if one had eaten breakfast in the morning may not wash clothes on the same day. Homeless people complained about denied supplies in reference of previous usage of the system on the same day. According to our interviewees it happened many times that unknown people registered them for using social supplies which has turned out when they actually showed up at an institution. Some of them, mostly members of the Város Mindenkié advocacy group tried to request their personal data from the National Authority for Registration and Social services (NRSZH). Although they were advised to visit the authority which lacks a customer service by officials, their requests were refused. After a dozen of homeless activists visited the authority together on Wednesday one person could get an appointment for the next morning. While homeless were waiting outside the authority’s building, the security guard called the police to stop journalists filming. On Thursday Gyula Szick and Ferenc Sándor could finally get a list of their registrations on given dates, but the responsible for this procedure still remains in secret. It is still unclear how it will be possible for other offended homeless people to get rid of the abuse of their personal data. This kind of data management raises serious legal concerns, our lawyers say.

Watch our video report (Hungarian)