What is the current and future prevalence of identity theft in facilitating/enabling fraud? How much of the UK’s personal data is available online in a format that is accessible at scale for use by fraudsters?
Background
A better understanding of the different vulnerabilities would support policy development and
operational activity to be focused on the areas that pose the greatest risk. This would be valuable both at a strategic level and when considering activity within different sectors of the economy.
The ARIs in this question group focus on the areas where further information would be particularly valuable to build on our existing understanding of the vulnerabilities in the UK. The key question relevant across all crime types here would be what the key vulnerabilities are that can be exploited by criminals engaging in economic crime.
Next steps
Get in touch with NECC-IF-Research@nca.gov.uk EconomicCrimeResearch@homeoffice.gov.uk
Source
This question was published as part of the set of ARIs in this document:
Economic Crime Areas of Research Interest ARI report July 2025 1
Topics
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Research fields
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Related UKRI funded projects
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“Identity Protect” development of a digital-platform to tackle the UK’s multi-billion pound losses from identity-fraud - protecting individual citizens from trauma, protecting businesses from billion pound losses, protecting society from organised-crime
Approximately 75% of UK adults use online banking and the value of UK website retail-sales is over £300Bn. Key to enabling UK productivity is reducing the growth in online crime. Identity fraud is growing, hundreds...
Funded by: Innovate UK
Why might this be relevant?
The project specifically addresses the prevalence of identity theft and fraud in the UK, providing solutions and statistics.
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Fraud During a Pandemic: Identifying and Appraising New Challenges for the Criminal Justice Response in England and Wales
The global Covid-19 pandemic has presented new opportunities for those looking to commit fraud, capitalising on new vulnerabilities (of systems, organisations, and members of the population), propelled by sophisticated c...
Funded by: COVID
Why might this be relevant?
The project specifically focuses on fraud during the pandemic, including the increase in fraud complexity and losses, which directly relates to the prevalence of identity theft in facilitating fraud.
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FRAUDSIM: A fraud control optimisation tool for readjustment to the new normal
The importance for our society to reduce criminal profit and deter future generations from finding financial crime as a rewarding lifestyle is one of the key aspects that we are envisioning to contribute with this projec...
Funded by: Innovate UK