Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if his Department will take steps to review the transparency of the process by which credit industry fraud avoidance system issues markers onto customer bank accounts.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer engages with a number of a key stakeholders to discuss policy matters.

Cifas is a fraud prevention service offering individuals and organisations help in combating the growing threat of fraud and financial crime. In 2022 Cifas members prevented fraudulent conduct totalling £1.3 billion, protecting people, businesses and the public finances from losses and wider harm.

To use the database, a Cifas member must operate within the terms of the National Fraud Database Handbook – a guide that sets out eight Principles of use with accompanying guidance. These Principles and guidance describe the controls in place to protect the data on the database and ensure that the highest possible standard of fairness and transparency are observed. Subjects have a right to know how data will be used and how any decisions related to them have been made, and can file a data subject access request (DSAR) to do this. More information on this can be found on the Cifas website.

If an individual believes that a Cifas marker has been incorrectly assigned they should first raise it with the organisation that recorded it to the Cifas database for them to review. If they do not remove the marker then the individual can go directly to Cifas. The individual can also apply to have a further review conducted by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).