Action Fraud
Action Fraud was set up in February 2010 by a number of official bodies including the Police, the Home Office and the National Fraud Authority. If you are unlucky enough to be the victim of ID fraud contact then as they are the centralised body for solving this type of crime. You should still contact the police.
They offer plenty of practical advice to help prevent ID fraud happening on their site www.actionfraud.org.uk and support if you are a victim. They can be contacted on 0300 1232040
IDENTITY & PASSPORT SERVICE
IPS have had notable successes in the past in exchanging data with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) regarding details of infant deaths, in order to prevent passports being issued in the identities of children who have died and this approach is now a key part of the IPS counter-fraud effort . To date over 2,000 cases have been identified, with 280 arrests and details of more than 1,000 identities placed on warning notices with various border control and enforcement agencies in the UK and overseas. In addition, from next year IPS will interview all first time adult applicants through a new network of offices. As part of this process, applicants may be asked to provide additional information and documentation to support the authentication of their identity history. More details about this and the other initiatives IPS are planning to combat the increased sophistication of identity fraud can be found on the IPS website www.ips.gov.uk
HALO
Halo is a unique system designed specifically to address the business requirement for an early and effective deceased fraud alert. It is based around a database of over 7 million deceased individuals with new records added to the file every day. Halo covers over 85% of all deaths in the UK. Many financial organisations now use Halo to check credit applications at the very earliest stage and hence are able to stop any fraudulent transactions in their tracks. Halo is also used by employers to verify new employee details, by pension’s providers to ensure that payments are not being paid to deceased pension holders and by law enforcement agencies to help detect criminal activity. To find out more about Halo visitwww.halofraudprevention.co.uk
CIFAS
CIFAS is The UK’s Fraud Prevention Service, a not-for-profit membership association solely dedicated to the prevention of financial crime. CIFAS has over 250 member organisations spread across banking, credit cards, asset finance, retail credit, mail order, insurance, investment management, telecommunications, factoring, and share dealing. CIFAS provides a range of fraud prevention services to its Members, including a fraud avoidance system used by the majority of the UK’s financial services companies. To find out more aboutwww.cifas.org.uk
JOINT MONEY LAUNDERING STEERING GROUP
To help counter money laundering the JMLSG has issued new guidelines which detail legislation for banks, building societies, credit institutions and other specified organisatons. These detail that electronic evidence of identity checks should include negative information sources such as databases relating to identity fraud and deceased persons. To put this into more simple terms, all new credit applications should be checked against various sources, including deceased data. Fraudulent transactions would therefore be detected at a much earlier stage. To find out more about the JMLSG visitwww.jmlsg.org.uk
IDENTITY FRAUD STEERING COMMITTEE
The Identity Fraud Steering Committee (IFSC) was established in 2003 and is a Home Office led cross public-private sector group which identifies and implements cost effective measures to counter identity fraud. The IFSC has developed a website — www.identitytheft.org.uk - which explains how individuals can keep personal information safe, how to get help if one is the victim of identity theft, and what is being done to tackle this growing crime. To find out more about the issue of identity fraud and what you can do to help prevent it, log on to www.identitytheft.org.uk
