Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will bring forward legislative proposals to enable information sharing between (a) banks, (b) technology firms and (c) telecommunications companies for the purposes of (i) investigating, (ii) detecting and (iii) preventing fraud.

As outlined in the Economic Crime Plan 2 (ECP2) and Fraud Strategy, both published earlier this year, sharing information and data is a key means for the public and private sectors to identify and block frauds and economic crime.

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill and reforms to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will remove the legislative barriers to economic crime data sharing.

As set out in ECP2, HMG will work with industry to implement a public-private economic crime data strategy that enhances the exploitation of available data across the ecosystem to better prevent, detect, and pursue economic crime.

HMG has also worked directly with key sectors to improve data and information sharing. This has included engaging with the Payment Systems Regulator and signing specific charters.