Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of the National Cyber Security Centre Suspicious Email Reporting Service in tackling online scams and frauds.

Fraudsters are sophisticated and will exploit any vulnerabilities they can, especially as more of us find ourselves at home and online.

To protect the public, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the UK’s national technical authority on cyber security, established the Suspicious Email Reporting Service. This service allows the public to report suspicious emails and potential phishing scams more effectively and easily to law enforcement. It has proved an instant success with the public, with over 5.8 million reports received and over 43,000 scams and 84,000 websites taken down since its inception in April 2020. To use the service, suspicious emails should be forwarded to: report@phishing.gov.uk.

As well as this, we continue to encourage the public to forward suspicious text messages to 7726 (which is free of charge) and anyone who has been a targeted by a scam to report it. Action Fraud is the national reporting service for all victims of fraud and cybercrime and can be contacted by phone on 0300 123 2040 or through their website: http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/report_fraud. All of this information is being used by the City of London Police, the National Cyber Security Centre and the National Crime Agency alongside crime reports to identify, disrupt and stop fraudsters.

The Government is also aware of the ongoing scams relating to Royal Mail and the Post Office. We are working closely alongside the City of London Police (the national lead force for fraud) and wider law enforcement to track and mitigate the risk to the public. Royal Mail has issued guidance on how to spot fake emails and communications and what to do if you have received one. More information can be found on the Royal Mail’s website: https://www.royalmail.com/help/scam-examples.