Identity fraud
What is being done?
The National Fraud Authority (NFA) was launched on 1 October 2008 with the aim of making the UK a hostile environment for fraudsters and published the National Fraud Strategy on 19 March 2009. The NFA oversees and provides a strategic framework to the work being carried out to tackle fraud in general, including the formation of an Identity Crime Task Force with senior representatives from ACPO, IPS, SOCA, HMRC and Industry.
The NFA is supported by a lead police force with key objectives on fraud and Action Fraud - a National Fraud Reporting Centre to record fraud. Individuals or business operators who have been a victim of fraud in the last 12 months and want to report it, are encouraged to contact Action Fraud through their website.
Wandsworth Council are committed to helping tackle ID fraud and have been keen supporters of the National Identity Fraud Prevention Week. In Wandsworth, Community Safety have run various events across the borough to promote ID fraud prevention, supported ID fraud experts from the Police Special Crime Directorate. As well as giving valuable advice, we have demonstrated the use of various ID fraud prevention tools such as shredders, security scissors and stamps that make sensitive information illegible.
Community Safety are currently working on a project alongside the Royal Mail and our partners in the Metropolitan Police to reduce the growing amount of theft of mail, one of the most common ways ID fraudsters get hold of your personal details. This is a growing problem not just in Wandsworth but across the whole of the UK.
For more information about ID fraud, what is being done to prevent it, how you can avoid becoming a victim and where to get help if you have been targeted, please go to http://www.identitytheft.org.uk./
