CIFAS Members issue call for action to Government

Members of CIFAS – the UK’s Fraud Prevention Service have delivered a clear and strong call for action to the UK Government to prevent fraud through data sharing initiatives that will help to identify fraudulent applications, identities and activity.

Members of CIFAS were surveyed and asked to highlight – in order of importance – three possible steps (out of a choice of 8) that they would most like to see taken to prevent fraud. The four most popular options were:

Government responsibility

Kate Beddington-Brown, CIFAS Head of Communications, comments upon these results by noting: “The 61% vote in favour of fraud data sharing is no surprise. Recently, we have come to accept that the Government has asked all sections of society to tighten their belts and make an additional contribution to the economy, whether through individuals making sacrifices in terms of income or lenders and businesses doing their bit to stimulate the economy. However, CIFAS Members are saying that Government needs to do more itself by ensuring that it is not literally giving money away to known fraudsters.

“So much more could be achieved if the Government would only learn from the achievements of the not-for-profit and private sectors and their 20 plus years of success in fraud data sharing. This would go a long way to help reduce the £20 billion of taxpayers’ money currently paid out to fraudsters, not least by ensuring that benefits are paid to genuine parties.”

Telling the truth

57% voted in favour of the Government providing services (such as checking the validity of national insurance numbers, tax codes etc) to other organisations to help verify identity and information. Although this would be a new departure for Government, accepting that data security is paramount, increased data sharing through specified legal gateways provided by the Serious Crime Act would benefit both the public purse and the private sector. The private sector would be able to prevent fraud by verifying the details given to them against information already collected by the public sector such as National Insurance and passport numbers. And if the public sector would agree to participate, they could gain massive advantages – and stem fraud losses – by checking their information against the huge store of confirmed fraud data collected by the private sector.

Kate Beddington-Brown notes: “It is well known that there are more national insurance numbers in use in the UK than there are working people. With the drain on the UK’s resources that this implies, the UK will never completely stem the tide of monies being lost to criminal applications. But fraud data sharing schemes such as CIFAS have helped to prevent billions of pounds of fraud losses since 1988 and, as our Members have said, now would be an excellent time for the Government to try this proven method and prevent further funds from being frittered away.”

Practising what is preached

CIFAS Chief Executive, Peter Hurst, concludes: “The apparent reluctance to share data should be outweighed by the savings that would be made by identifying which claims are fraudulent and which are not.  The Government’s participation in data sharing schemes solely designed to prevent fraud would undoubtedly help the Government to reduce the drain upon the public purse. Second, it would help police forces to focus in on serious financial criminals by enabling the police to target those criminals who are raiding both the financial and benefits systems, and this would also help businesses to lend responsibly (as CIFAS Members wish to, and as they have been asked to by the Government).

“Our Members are asking the Government to lead by example, and work more efficiently, which is more necessary than ever in these days of austerity. Keeping the identity of fraudsters who steal from the  public purse so secret that it’s almost impossible for commercial and other organisations to find out who they are, makes no economic sense. This is taking Human Rights too far.”

Notes to Editors:

1.   CIFAS is the UK's Fraud Prevention Service with over 250 Member organisations spread across banking, credit cards, asset finance, retail credit, mail order, insurance, investment management, telecommunications, factoring and share dealing and the public sector.  Members share information on identified frauds in the fight to prevent further fraud.  CIFAS is unique and was the first data sharing scheme of its type in the world.  Other schemes modelled on CIFAS have been set up in Southern Africa and Germany.

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