National centre to deal with ID fraud

A national centre where consumers can report crimes such as identity and card fraud is to be set up in the UK.

Acting on the recommendations of the 2005 Fraud Review, the Government announced in yesterday's Comprehensive Spending review that it will add an additional £11m by 2010-11 to establish a National Fraud Reporting Centre.

Last year more than 170,000 cases of identity fraud were recorded by the Government but currently there is no single point of contact for consumers who find themselves victims of such crime.

One problem is the crime is a broad one, covering identity theft and credit and debit card crimes amongst others. The consumer is not considered by the authorities to be the victim when these crimes occur as generally they don't suffer financial loss; the 'victims in the eyes of the law tend to be the banks or companies who bear the financial brunt.

It doesn't help that the Home Office changed the reporting procedures on 1 April this year, so that the public is no longer meant to report card crime to the police; only their bank.

Fraud screening company The 3rd Man said while it welcomed the proposals, the authorities need to clearly define what crimes they consider as identity fraud.

The company's managing director Paul Simms said: "What exactly do they mean by identity fraud? There is, for example, a difference between identity theft and credit card fraud and the Government needs to clarify what it means by this term 'identity fraud' and these new bodies need to involve retail, the banks and consumers to clarify these crimes.

"We have seen the broad outline for the setup for this centre but they need to involve more people in getting the goals right."

The plan for this centre to be managed by a lead police force centred on the City of London Police and, according to the Attorney General's office, have input from the Metropolitan police. To ensure overall co-ordination and strategy, there will also be a National Fraud Strategic Authority.

The news also follows calls by MPs for an "identity fraud tsar". Last week the All Party Parliamentary Group on Identity Fraud (APPG) presented its final report to the Government saying someone should be appointed to monitor and coordinate attempts to combat these crimes.

The APPG also called for tougher sanctions on businesses that put people's personal information at risk; including giving the Information Commissioner stronger powers to deal with breaches of the Data Protection Act (DPA).

Tony Neate, managing director, Get Safe Online supported the APPG's recommendations. He said: "Get Safe Online supports any initiative that heightens people’s awareness of the need for online security.

"This awareness would only be further enhanced by the appointment of a person specifically responsible for fraud in general, particularly, online fraud."