Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will consider the potential merits of making identity theft a recordable crime.

Existing legislation, such as the Fraud Act 2006, the Computer Misuse Act 1990, the Identity Documents Act 2010, and the Data Protection Act 2018, already covers existing cases where criminals use stolen identities to commit crime, and the protection of personal data. As such, at this time, we do not intend to make identity theft a criminal offence.

We are aware of the harms caused by identity theft, and we recognise that the most effective way of preventing it is to improve the safety and security of the identity systems we use. We continue looking at what more can be done to ensure that identity systems remain secure and robust against potential attack.

Additionally, a central part of the Government’s new Fraud Strategy is to empower the public to further protect themselves from fraud by delivering clear, consistent and timely messaging which will helps millions more to prevent their data from being stolen.