Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many cases of phishing have been reported to the police in each of the last five years.

The number of cases of phishing that have been reported to the police is not centrally available.

Phishing is an enabler to commit fraud and is not in itself a crime. Where a phishing e-mail has been used to commit fraud or computer misuse offences, the relevant fraud or computer misuse offence would be recorded by Action Fraud, who are now responsible for the central recording of fraud offences previously recorded by individual police forces.

Fraud offences recorded by Action Fraud, including those relating to computer misuse crime, are published on a quarterly basis by ONS.