The Information Commission Officers (ICO) has become the latest UK regulator to weigh in on the extent of fraudulent activity in the country and how it can be prevented.
Timing its announcement with the end of Fraud Awareness Week, the ICO has urged organisations to step up the extent of data sharing to tackle scams and fraud.
It has reminded companies that data protection laws do not prevent sharing of personal information as long as it is done in what it calls a ‘responsible, fair and proportionate way’.
Stephen Almond, Executive Director for Regulatory Risk at the ICO, said: “From emotional distress to financial damage, scams and fraud have serious consequences. We strongly support responsible and effective data sharing between organisations, which is key to staying one step ahead of criminals and preventing scams before they cause harm.
“Protecting people must be the priority – I am warning organisations today that data protection law is not an excuse and it does not stop you sharing data that may assist with tackling fraud. Organisations acting responsibly can be reassured that we will take this into account if something goes wrong and we need to consider a regulatory response.”
The impact fraud is having on UK consumers and businesses has caught the attention of various stakeholders including trade bodies, regulators, consumer rights groups and the government.
Fraud accounts for 39% of all criminal activity in the UK and estimates from the UK Finance trade body put total losses at £571.7m in H1 2024 alone, though this was a slight decrease on the previous year’s figures.
Regulators have been working to combat this, with the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) introducing new reimbursement requirements for authorised push payment (APP) fraud in October.
Though these rules have faced some pushback from the industry, adoption has been going smoothly and PSR believes the requirement provides an incentive to banks to do more on fraud prevention.
Meanwhile, HM Treasury gave banks more prevention powers last month and the recently published National Payments Vision (NPV) mentioned fraud and fraud prevention around 40 times.
APP fraud, particularly purchase scams, alongside romance scams are of particular concern to the government, whilst banks are highlighting more cases of ticketing fraud. The Labour government has also stated that it wants to see Big Tech firms do more to fight fraud.
Data sharing has been central in the discussion around fraud prevention, hence why the ICO has encouraged firms to do so. Exactly how data should be shared and how exactly it should be used is another area for the industry to hash out, however.
“Information sharing between private industry, and with the public sector, is a fundamental tool used to tackle fraud,” commented Nick Sharp, Deputy Director Fraud in the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC).
“The new advice from the ICO is very welcome, and we encourage all industry partners to use it to ensure appropriate and confident data-sharing enables our joint efforts to reduce the harm from fraud.
“Together with our partners in both the private and public sector, we are working to identify, disrupt and prevent fraud, and will pursue every legal angle to ensure criminals who target the UK public are held to account.”
