A coordinated effort across sectors, law enforcement and government is needed against online crime, the UK Government has stated. The Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology Peter Kyle have written to the tech and telecommunication sectors calling for them to go further and faster in reducing the scale of fraud taking place on their platforms and networks – with an update on progress requested by March 2025.
Comment
Richard Hyde, Senior Researcher at the think-tank the Social Market Foundation, said: “The announcement by the Chancellor Rachel Reeves that telecoms and tech companies should take more responsibility for the fraud that is promulgated through their services is a welcome one. Requiring such companies to report on how quickly they’re upping their efforts by March next year will be helpful. However, if the government wants to make a significant long-term difference, stronger measures in addition to stern words and reporting will be needed.
“The scale of the investments that need to be made by telecoms providers and tech firms to squeeze out much of the fraud from their services will only happen if the firms are pushed into it with a comprehensive framework based on clear legal duties to tackle fraud backed up by significant financial penalties for poor anti-fraud performance. Such an approach will help catapult fraud to the top of the boardroom agenda. Provision in the recently passed Online Safety Act provides a basis on which a broader policy can be built.”
Rachel Reeves in her Mansion House speech said that the UK Government is working with tech platforms and telco networks to reduce the scale of incidence and losses from fraud. She told the City of London Corporation that it was part of work to ‘protect the integrity of the financial services sector’.
The UK Government has recently hailed an Insurance Fraud Charter as a voluntary agreement between the government and the insurance sector to combat fraud, setting out principles around sharing data, and a ‘more consistent approach to classifying fraud and the identification of fraud trends’.
Knife consultation
Meanwhile in a consultation published on Wednesday by the Home Office, it’s proposed to make senior online marketplaces and platforms’ executives personally liable if their companies do not comply with requests to remove illegal content relating to knives and offensive weapons. A ‘content removal notice’ would set out details of illegal offers for sale or unlawful marketing of knives posted, requiring the company to remove specific illegal content. If the platform or marketplace failed to remove the content within a set time – 48 hours is proposed – a second content removal notice would be sent to the relevant senior executive to make them aware of the requirement for the content to be removed and warning them of potential civil court action, such as a fine, as a consequence of non-compliance. The Online Safety Act 2023 already places a legal responsibility on social media companies and online search services for their users’ safety on their platforms; Ofcom is in the process of setting up a regulatory regime.
As featured in the December edition of Professional Security magazine, police seeking to combat knife crime are looking at online sales of such items; the consultation document acknowledges that ‘private sellers or resellers are using social media platforms and marketplaces to sell knives and other weapons illegally’.
The consultation closes on December 11.
