Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, identity theft, as my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond said, is no longer a niche crime; it is the dominant fraud type in the UK and getting worse. In 2024, over 421,000 fraud cases were filed to the national fraud database and almost 250,000 were identity fraud filings, making identity theft the single largest category recorded by industry partners. CIFAS, the credit industry fraud avoidance system, recorded a record number of cases on the national fraud database in 2024. The organisations themselves prevented more than £2.1 billion of attempted loss, yet criminals are shifting tactics. Account takeovers rose by 76% and unauthorised SIM swaps surged, driven by the rapid adoption of AI and generative tools that let fraudsters create convincing fake documents and synthetic identities at scale.

We have all read of some of the high-profile examples: celebrity impersonation via deepfakes and cloned voices has been widely reported; manipulated videos and voice clones purporting to show public figures from Elon Musk to Martin Lewis, Holly Willoughby and others, have been used to generate investment scams and phishing campaigns. Documented victim losses include large individual losses linked to celebrity impersonation scams. One NatWest customer is reported to have lost £150,000 after responding to a scam impersonating Martin Lewis.

However, I think we are all more concerned with the tens of thousands of ordinary people who are not celebrities and who lose all their savings to these crooks. They are the victims who suffer real financial loss and damage, with long and costly recovery processes, while businesses face rising prevention costs and operational strain. I therefore strongly support the concept of the draft clause and the need for it. While it is well intentioned, I fear that it has some technical difficulties. It is a bit broad and vague about what “obtains” and “impersonate” mean. It also risks overlap with the Fraud Act, the Computer Misuse Act and the Data Protection Act, and lacks some clear defences for legitimate security research and lawful investigations. It also needs to address AI and the deepfake-specific methods, and set out what we can do about extraterritorial reach, for example, or aggravating factors for organised, large-scale operations.

We all know that my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond is, as we have just heard, an absolute expert on AI; he recently addressed a top-level group of the Council of Europe on this subject. May I suggest that he and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, get together with the Home Office or other government digital experts and bring back on Report a more tightly drafted amendment? Among other things, it should tighten the definitions of “obtain”, “impersonate” and “sensitive”; ensure that the mens rea is tied to dishonesty or intent to cause loss or gain; include recklessness in enabling others; limit the scope to unlawfully obtained data or use that bypasses authentication; and explicitly include AI/deepfake methods when used to bypass checks or cause reliance. It should also have clear defences for lawful authority and make sure that duplication is avoided, whether it be with the Fraud Act, the Computer Misuse Act or the Data Protection Act. Finally—I know this is an impossible ask, and that Governments find it almost impossible to do—something should be done about extraterritorial reach, because that is terribly important.

I say to the Minister: there is a gap in the legislation here. We should plug it, and we may have time to bring back on Report a more tightly drawn amendment that would deal with all the concerns of noble Lords and the possible problems I have just raised.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support strongly the comments of my noble friend Lord Blencathra and the principle of the amendment laid by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. This is a timely amendment, possibly timelier than the noble Lord anticipated, because today the Government have announced the promotion of a Minister to promulgate digital IDs among the population.

Digital IDs are going to have a huge vista and connection, not just in linking to personal data but in other areas of life: in the relationship between the state and the individual; and in the payment of parking tickets, road tolls, stamp duty and fishing licences—a different sort of fishing, as it begins with an “f”, not a “p”. So I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, on the thrust of the amendment, although I accept that some polishing is required.

If the Government are to promote digital IDs, the population at large need to have confidence not just that they will be correctly introduced but that there are safeguards against such impersonation. I strongly support the principle of this amendment and say to the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, that if the Government resist it in principle, what confidence can the man in the street have that the Government are sincere about the safeguards they intend to introduce, alongside their intention for digital IDs—to get that balance right between the state and the individual, coupled together against the criminal?

We need to bring this back on Report. I hope the Minister is prepared to meet the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and others to address this principle, so that the Government get off on the right foot, if they intend to promote digital IDs, and not resist this, because there is a world of pain if they do.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for tabling this amendment. I know that the creation of a specific identity offence has been a long-standing concern of his, so I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I tentatively support the principle behind his amendment, although this issue is deserving of more scrutiny and thought than we are perhaps able to give it as an amendment in Committee.

I recognise the impetus for this amendment. Identity theft has long been the primary means by which criminals commit fraud; and, with a booming online world exacerbated by the introduction of artificial intelligence, digital identity theft is fast becoming a serious issue. CIFAS, the leading non-profit fraud prevention service, has documented the rise in identity theft. Last year, as we have heard from my noble friend Lord Blencathra, over 420,000 fraud cases were filed to the national fraud database, a 13% increase on the previous year. The main driver of this increase was identity fraud, with 250,000 filings, representing a 5% annual increase.

CIFAS cites online fraud as a primary cause of this increase; AI and generative technologies enable criminals to exploit people at speed and scale. Documents and identity cards are being forged at a more sophisticated level than before, with many now able to pass verification checks. Targets are often the elderly, as criminals target the least technologically capable and therefore most vulnerable victims.