SIR – The recent National Identity Fraud Prevention Awareness Campaign served to highlight the fact that fraud is undoubtedly one of the UK’s fastest-growing crimes.

However, within the UK’s business community, the confusion surrounding the right to use or share employee/customer and partner information to counter fraud is still fundamentally undermining the ability of UK organisations and the Government to act.


Increasingly being organised by dedicated criminal gangs, fraudulent activity from VAT carousel schemes through to systematic insurance and benefits fraud is increasing year-on-year. How ironic it is, then, that one of the major constraints placed on effective fraud detection and prevention is a complete lack of understanding of information ownership within organisations.

The confusion arising from the overlap of the Data Protection Act, the Human Rights Act and various pieces of employment-related legislation has rendered companies impotent. They are terrified to use the employee, customer and supplier-generated information that could transform the fight against fraud.

With growing recognition of the value of sharing information to increase the chances of detecting fraudulent activity, there is a real need for the Government to not only shed light on what are apparently conflicting information laws, but also to introduce an era of ‘controlled openness’ that will offer the potential fraudster far less places in which to hide.

Richard Kusnierz Director IDS

Source

SMT