Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with the government of India about the large-scale online organisations identified by the BBC's Scam Interceptors programme, which seek to defraud UK internet users and which operate out of Kolkata.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
We are developing stronger partnerships with countries across the world to build the global response to this vile threat and tackle fraudsters wherever they are based. We are hosting the inaugural Global Fraud Summit in March, which will convene key allies to spearhead a coordinated diplomatic and law enforcement approach to tackling fraud internationally.
We are also engaging with the Government of India directly to see what more can be done, including on law enforcement collaboration and sharing best practice on fraud prevention.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the support for victims of intellectual property theft provided by Action Fraud.
Answered by Saqib Bhatti - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
In 2023 the Government published a Fraud Strategy, setting out plans to reduce fraud by 10% by December 2024.
Action Fraud is the UK’s national information and reporting centre for fraud and financially motivated internet crime, including intellectual property theft. As part of the national fraud strategy, the government is committed to replacing Action Fraud with a new state-of-the-art reporting service, making it easier for victims to report crime, and for law enforcement to take action on victims’ reports.
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth East)
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 - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
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.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour - Life peer)
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 - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for 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.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has made an estimate of the total amount banks have repaid customers that have been victims of (a) fraud and (b) payment scams.
Answered by Bim Afolami - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government takes fraud and scams very seriously and is dedicated to protecting the public from this devastating crime. Tackling fraud and scams requires a unified and co-ordinated response from government, law enforcement and the private sector to better protect the public and businesses, reduce the impact on victims, and increase the disruption and prosecution of fraudsters.
According to data published by the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) on 31 October, the fourteen largest payment service providers reimbursed a total of £237,219,623 of losses from authorised push payment (APP) fraud. Reimbursement rates varied significantly by firm. As part of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, the Government legislated to enable the PSR to mandate payment service providers to reimburse victims of APP scams. This will ensure that victims of APP scams are reimbursed on a more consistent basis and ensure greater consumer protection. The Government also intends to introduce legislation to allow payment service providers to slow down payments processing when there is a reasonable suspicion of fraud. The Government will introduce this legislation in due course.
Beyond this, the Government has taken significant action to address this issue. In May 2022, the Government published its fraud strategy, setting out a number of new measures. For example, the Government announced it will extend the ban on cold calling to cover all consumer financial services and products, and recently consulted on the design and scope of this ban. The Government has also taken action to address fraudulent activity being hosted online through the Online Safety Act 2023, which includes a new standalone duty requiring large internet firms to remove fraudulent content on their platforms.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of his Department's policies to tackle bank (a) fraud and (b) scams.
Answered by Bim Afolami - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government takes fraud and scams very seriously and is dedicated to protecting the public from this devastating crime. Tackling fraud and scams requires a unified and co-ordinated response from government, law enforcement and the private sector to better protect the public and businesses, reduce the impact on victims, and increase the disruption and prosecution of fraudsters.
According to data published by the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) on 31 October, the fourteen largest payment service providers reimbursed a total of £237,219,623 of losses from authorised push payment (APP) fraud. Reimbursement rates varied significantly by firm. As part of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, the Government legislated to enable the PSR to mandate payment service providers to reimburse victims of APP scams. This will ensure that victims of APP scams are reimbursed on a more consistent basis and ensure greater consumer protection. The Government also intends to introduce legislation to allow payment service providers to slow down payments processing when there is a reasonable suspicion of fraud. The Government will introduce this legislation in due course.
Beyond this, the Government has taken significant action to address this issue. In May 2022, the Government published its fraud strategy, setting out a number of new measures. For example, the Government announced it will extend the ban on cold calling to cover all consumer financial services and products, and recently consulted on the design and scope of this ban. The Government has also taken action to address fraudulent activity being hosted online through the Online Safety Act 2023, which includes a new standalone duty requiring large internet firms to remove fraudulent content on their platforms.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps her Department has taken to help reduce online fraud.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
In May, the government published a new strategy to address the threat of fraud. One of the three pillars included in the strategy focuses on blocking fraud at source, which includes actions to prevent online fraud.
The Online Safety Bill will tackle online harms, including fraud and fraudulent advertising. This means that social media and search engine companies will have to take robust, proactive action to ensure that their users are not exposed to these crimes in the first place.
We are also working with the large tech companies to agree an online fraud charter, which will include actions to help tackle online fraud.
Asked by: Lord Browne of Belmont (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that UK citizens are protected from online fraud and the rise in social media and text messaging scams.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Government is committed to doing everything we can to stop criminals abusing online platforms and telecommunications networks for fraud. This is why we published the Fraud Strategy, setting out how we will address the threat of this crime. One of the three pillars included in the strategy focuses on blocking frauds from happening in the first place, which includes actions to prevent online fraud and telecommunications-enabled fraud.
We are currently working with tech companies to create an Online Fraud Charter which will include a number of voluntary actions to help design out fraud. The Online Safety Bill will also tackle online harms, including fraud and fraudulent advertising. This means that social media and search engine companies will have to take robust, proactive action to ensure that their users are not exposed to these crimes in the first place. We expect this to have a strong impact on some of the highest harm fraud types.
In October 2021, we launched the Telecommunications Fraud Sector Charter which includes actions to block scam calls and smishing texts. In the strategy, we also announced the launch of a consultation with a view to ban SIM farms. These are devices that allow fraudsters to send hundreds of thousands of scam texts in short time and at low cost. We are consulting on making it illegal to sell, purchase, possess, or use SIM farms. Following the consultation, we will rapidly bring forward legislation to ensure criminals can no longer use them to scam UK citizens.
Whilst it is vital we continue to target the criminals behind fraud and work with industry to make it harder for them to operate, one of the best ways to safeguard the public is to also ensure they are well-informed about how to protect themselves. That is why raising awareness and safeguarding victims forms another of the three pillars in the Fraud Strategy.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to tackle online fraud.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
Last month, the government published a new strategy to address the threat of fraud. One of the three pillars included in the strategy focuses on blocking frauds from happening in the first place, which includes actions to prevent online fraud. This includes ensuring the tech sector take fraud seriously and put in place extra protections for their customers, shining a light on which platforms are the safest and that companies are properly incentivised to combat fraud. We are working with tech companies to create an online fraud charter which will include a number of voluntary actions to help design out fraud.
The Online Safety Bill will also tackle online harms, including fraud and fraudulent advertising. This means that social media and search engine companies will have to take robust, proactive action to ensure that their users are not exposed to these crimes in the first place. We expect this to have a strong impact on some of the highest harm fraud types.
We are replacing the Action Fraud service to create a more efficient new system that will provide better intelligence to forces. Improvements include:
These improvements, which have been tested across the victim support landscape, law enforcement agencies, and other relevant bodies, will improve the support services and reporting tools for victims, provide greater intelligence and insight to policing for investigations, and allow for greater proactive work to prevent and disrupt fraudsters at scale.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
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.