Found: positioned to defraud credit institutions.35 Online Fraud 7.Terrorism financiers have also used Internet

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many teams within his Department are involved in tackling coordinated inauthentic behaviour online.

Answered by Alex Burghart - Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is the lead department for tackling coordinated inauthentic behaviour online and works across departments to deliver HMG’s objectives.

A number of teams in the Cabinet Office, including the National Security Secretariat and Government Security Group contribute to efforts to tackle different aspects of coordinated inauthentic behaviour online. For example, teams in the Cabinet Office are actively involved where online activity constitutes a cyber or state threat, or targets government institutions or elected officials.

Work to counter threats to UK democracy and democratic institutions, including from coordinated inauthentic behaviour is led by the Defending Democracy Taskforce.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to raise awareness of the risks of online scams, particularly for those with limited digital skills.

Answered by Viscount Camrose - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)

This Government is committed to protecting those who are most vulnerable to online scams.

The Online Safety Act will require social media providers to take steps to safeguard their users from illegal scams and fraudulent advertising. In overseeing the framework, Ofcom must ensure that there are adequate protections for those that are most vulnerable to online harm.

The legislation also expands Ofcom’s duty to promote media literacy under the 2003 Communications Act. The regulator is now required to raise the public’s awareness of how to keep themselves and others safe online. It will need to publish a strategy for achieving this, which must be updated every three years.

In tandem, the Government is taking action to improve people’s media literacy more widely. In July 2021, we published the Online Media Literacy Strategy. This seeks to support the empowerment of internet users with the skills they need to make safe and informed choices online. Through the Strategy, the Government is funding multiple organisations to support the media literacy and critical thinking skills of vulnerable internet users.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of including measures to help tackle fake online reviews in the Online Safety Bill.

Answered by Paul Scully

Online fake reviews are not within scope of the Online Safety Bill but are being addressed through separate legislation. The new Digital Markets and Consumers Competition Bill, which was introduced to Parliament on 25 April, includes a delegated power to amend the ‘blacklist’ of automatically unfair practices set out in the Bill.

The first intended use of this power is to add practices related to fake and misleading reviews following consultation during Bill passage. This will give greater clarity to business and consumers and, where fake reviews are posted, allow enforcers to take effective action quickly.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps the Government is taking to help tackle fake online reviews.

Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade

The Government introduced the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Bill on 25 April. The DMCC Bill includes a delegated power to amend the list of automatically unfair practices in the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.

The Government will consult on the use of this power during bill passage with a view to adding practices related to fake and misleading reviews to the list of automatically unfair practices. This will give greater clarity to business on their responsibilities in relation to consumer reviews and allow enforcers to take effective action quickly.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Government is taking to help increase protections against online scams.

Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Shadow Minister (Home Office) (Security)

Tackling fraud requires a unified and co-ordinated response from government, law enforcement and the private sector to better protect the public and businesses from fraud, reduce the impact of fraud on victims, and increase the disruption and prosecution of fraudsters. We will publish a strategy setting out how we will do this shortly.

Fraud has been brought into scope of the Online Safety Bill to make tech firms responsible for protecting their customers from fraud. DCMS is also leading work on the Online Advertising Programme, which is considering further regulation of online advertising and examining all harms related to online advertising, including fraud.

We are intending to launch a tech sector charter that will examine more ways Government and industry can collaborate and put in place further innovative solutions to protect the public from losing their hard-earned money.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to protect people from online scams.

Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Shadow Minister (Home Office) (Security)

Online fraud is a pernicious crime that can cause devastating financial and emotional harm to victims. The Government has been working with partners in the public and private sectors to keep the public safe and bring these fraudsters to justice.

The National Cyber Security Centre are leading the way combatting online scams through their Suspicious Email Reporting Service which allows members of the public to forward any suspicious emails and potential phishing scams more effectively and easily to law enforcement. Since its inception in April 2020, it has already led to over 15 million reports and the removal of over 105,000 scams across 192,000 URLs (as of October 2022).

We have also introduced the Online Safety Bill, an ambitious and forward-looking piece of legislation that will tackle online harms including fraud and fraudulent advertising. DCMS is leading further work on an Online Advertising Programme. This will consider further regulation of online advertising, including for fraud. In March 2022, DCMS published their consultation which has now closed, and the Government will publish its response in due course.

We have been working with industry on a voluntary basis. On 21^st October 2021, the newly relaunched Joint Fraud Taskforce published three voluntary charters to combat fraud in the accountancy, retail banking and telecommunications sectors. We have seen progress with one UK mobile operator reporting a 97% decline in scam texts over a nine-month period.

We continue to encourage the public to report fraud to Action fraud and to forward any suspicious emails to report@phishing.gov.uk and suspicious texts to 7726, free of charge.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimates her Department has produced or commissioned of the total financial cost of online fraud committed against individuals in the UK in (a) financial year 2020-21, (b) calendar year 2021 and (c) financial year 2021-22.

Answered by Stephen McPartland

Online fraud is a particularly pernicious crime that preys on some of the most vulnerable people in the country. Tackling it is a priority for this Government and we continue to work with all partners to protect the public and pursue fraudsters.

As of March 2021, online fraud was estimated, using data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, at 58% of fraud while the volume of fraud against individuals was 4.65 million incidents. The most recent estimate (December 2021) of fraud against individuals was 5.2 million incidents

Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of (1) the incidence, and (2) aggregate cost to victims, of online fraud; and what assessment they have made of the success of (a) the technology platforms, and (b) enforcement authorities of (i) identifying fraudulent sites or activity, and (ii) effectively countering them.

Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)

As of March 2021, online fraud was estimated, using data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, at 58% of fraud while the volume of fraud against individuals was 4.65 million incidents. The most recent estimate (December 2021) of fraud against individuals was 5.2 million incidents. However, an estimate of online fraud for this period is unavailable at present.

The Home Office does not collate statistics regarding costs to victims of online fraud. The most recent estimate of the total cost of fraud against individuals is £4.7 bn for the FY 2015/16. The Home Office also does not measure ‘success’ of technology platforms and enforcement authorities in identifying fraudulent sites and activity and countering them. The Home Office works closely with the National Cyber Security Centre who launched their Suspicious Email Reporting Service in April 2020. This has already led to over 11 million reports received and the removal of over 78,000 scams and 144,000 harmful websites to date.

The Government’s programme of work to tackle fraudulent online advertising in collaboration with industry includes the Online Safety Bill and the Online Advertising Programme.

Found: The Psychology of Internet Fraud Victimisation: a Systematic Review.

Found: Online crime was now by far the most prevalent type of crime and, by means of the internet, fraud had

Found: The UK National Quantum Technologies Programme intends to tackle internet fraud using quantum technology

Found: Bureau and the Latvia Consumer Rights Protection Centre, co - b. group responds to the challenges of internet

Found: Online crime was now by far the most prevalent type of crime and, by means of the internet, fraud had