Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what plans her Department has to ensure that telecommunications companies do more to protect customers from vishing fraud and similar scams.

The Government takes all types of fraud extremely seriously. We are working closely with telecommunications service providers and regulators to raise consumer awareness, in particular amongst those who are more vulnerable, to this practice and similar fraud that is carried out through the use of telephones.

The Government recently introduced secondary legislation to make it a requirement for all direct marketing callers to provide Calling Line Identification (CLI). This requirement came into force on 16 May 2016. The measure will increase consumer choice, by making it easier for people to identify direct marketing calls, and choose whether to accept them. It will also increase the ICO’s ability to investigate such calls, by enabling consumers to provide better information and thus make it easier for the ICO to take action.

In March 2016 we allocated £0.5m to the National Trading Standards Scams Team to provide call blocking devices to vulnerable people. The devices will be rolled out nationwide over the next two years and evaluation reports will be submitted to the Department for Culture Media and Sport on their effectiveness.

The Home Office recently launched a new joint fraud taskforce to tackle the issue of scams more generally. Further information about the taskforce is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/home-secretary-launches-new-joint-fraud-taskforce