Government and industry meet to progress fight against fraud

Representatives discussed the development of an Online Fraud Charter with the tech sector to respond to the growing volume of fraud originating on social media platforms. The Online Fraud Charter will ensure that tech firms take action to block scams, make it easier to report frauds and ensure that fraudulent content is removed swiftly.

The Security Minister has also called on tech firms to implement stronger measures designed to tackle fraud on their platforms ahead of the introduction of the Online Safety Bill.

Anti-fraud champion Anthony Browne said: “Collaboration with industry is key to blocking fraud at source. Since stepping into my role, I’ve worked at pace with industry to ensure we are delivering on our commitment to cut off the channels fraudsters use to target us and protect people’s hard-earned money. I will continue this conversation with tech sector bosses to ensure they are doing everything in their power to disrupt the callous fraudsters operating online and better protect their users.”

Massive action

Previous Joint Fraud Task Force meetings have overseen the development and agreement of bespoke Charters covering sectors such as retail banking and telecoms. The Telecommunications Charter has already resulted in massive action by the operators, with over 600 million scam texts blocked and vast numbers of scam calls filtered out before they can reach the public.

Representatives also discussed the development of a cross-Government anti-fraud public awareness campaign to streamline and simplify messaging to the public. The Security Minister encouraged partners to collaborate with Government on the preparation and delivery of the campaign.

The meeting is the first to be held since the publication of the Government’s aforementioned Fraud Strategy, which sets out a ‘whole system’-style response to tackling these crimes in the light of how they’ve evolved through time due to modern technology.

This included the creation of a new National Fraud Squad to overhaul how these crimes are investigated by adopting a proactive, intelligence-led approach backed by 400 new specialist investigators, all of them working with local forces, international partners and members of the UK’s intelligence community to shut down fraud cells.

Other measures in the National Fraid Strategy include:

*banning cold calls on all financial products such as types of insurance or sham cryptocurrency schemes

*working with Ofcom on using new technology to further clamp down on number ‘spoofing’ such that fraudsters cannot impersonate legitimate UK phone numbers

*banning the use of so-called ‘SIM farms’ commonly harnessed by scammers to reach thousands of individuals at once

*reviewing the use of mass texting services

*rolling out tailored support to victims at a local level across the whole of England and Wales through the National Economic Crime Victim Care Unit

*launching an independent review of the challenges in investigating and prosecuting fraud to speed up the justice process, punishing more scammers and ensuring sentences match the severity of the impact on victims

*deploying the UK’s intelligence community to identify and disrupt more fraudsters overseas

*publishing regular data on the volume of fraudulent content hosted on different websites and platforms in order to incentivise companies to root these out and better protect users

Organisations in attendance at the latest meeting of the Joint Fraud Task Force included His Majesty’s Treasury, the National Cyber Security Centre, the National Economic Crime Centre, the City of London Police, National Trading Standards, UK Finance, Cifas, OFCOM, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, Victim Support, the Financial Conduct Authority, The Law Society of England and Wales, the Association of British Insurers, TechUK, Google, the Communications Crime Strategy Group, the Serious Fraud Office, the Welsh Government and the Department of Justice for Northern Ireland.

Industry reaction

Responding to the Government’s policies, Chris Downie (CEO of fraud detection platform Pasabi) said: “The tsunami of online scams and fake reviews is costing the economy billions. It’s time for tech platforms, social media sites and review aggregators to tackle this challenge head on. The Government is entirely right to call on tech companies to take forcible action in addressing this menace, and that means a lot more than tinkering with verification settings and issuing a few warning notices to customers.”

Downie added: “By harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence and the latest fraud detection technology, businesses should be able to swiftly identify and erase the threat posed by fake reviews, thereby protecting customers from harmful scams and restoring confidence in the industry.”

Security specialist Suid Adeyanju, CEO at RiverSafe, explained: “Tackling the surge in online fraud and taking the fight to the cyber criminals should be a top priority for the tech industry, and the Government is absolutely right to ramp up pressure on this crucial issue. For too long now, online fraudsters have been running riot, with scams and cyber traps costing the economy billions of pounds and destroying businesses.”

Adeyanju concluded: “Hiring enforcement officers to investigate these incidents is a step in the right direction, but we need to see much more aggressive action to prosecute and jail offenders, sending a clear signal that the fightback against cyber crime has truly begun.”