Title: UNITED KINGDOM

United Kingdom

Concepts

Next to the United States, the United Kingdom certainly has an extensive history when it comes to identity-related crime. Within the European Union, the United Kingdom remains a territory which is often singled-out with regard to identity-related crime when general remarks are made about the state of affairs. In February 2004, the European Commission held a Forum on identity theft where the attendees noted how “Identity theft is growing fast outside the EU (US, Canada, Australia) and is very relevant in the UK. For now, it does not seem to be equally prominent in the other Member States.”

Within the United Kingdom, individuals, from policy makers to academics, use both identity theft and identity fraud when they discuss identity-related crime. In general, they most often use the term identity fraud. The Home Office provides various definitions for the different terms. According to the Home Office, “Identity fraud and identity theft are often used very loosely to describe any situation in which personal details are misappropriated for gain. The following definitions have been developed by the Identity Fraud Steering Committee to clarify these terms”:

1. Identity Crime is a generic term for Identity Theft, creating a False Identity or committing Identity Fraud.

2. False Identity is:   (a) a fictitious (i.e. invented) identity; or (b) an existing (i.e. genuine) identity that has been altered to create a fictitious identity.

3. Identity Theft occurs when sufficient information about an identity is obtained to acilitate Identity Fraud, irrespective of whether, in the case of an individual, the victim is alive or dead.

4. Identity Fraud occurs when a False Identity or someone else’s identity details are used to support unlawful activity, or when someone avoids obligation/liability by falsely claiming that he/she was the victim of Identity Fraud.

With regard to definitions set forth in the FIDIS typology, there is a significant difference. The definitions used in the United Kingdom do not consider identity fraud as a more general term which includes, or can include, identity theft. Rather, identity theft is a prepatory action taken to commit identity fraud which certainly changes the overall debate but also the (legal) countermeasures introduced. This is primarily a result because incidents of identity-related crime are broken into two distinct parts which means actions taken to prevent or reduce the problem need to focus on both aspects of the problem. This clearly has both benefits and drawbacks. Certainly through dividing the problem into two stages, oversight of how to counter the problem is clearer because policy makers and other involved individuals can target certain actions in a more specific manner. The identity theft stage, for example, requires policymakers to institute better or more effective means of data protection with regard to both the public and the private sector and also with regard to consumers, because the identity theft stage is all about gaining the personal identifying details to actually commit fraud with the ‘stolen’ identity. The actual identity fraud, on the other hand, requires different types of countermeasures because perpetrators target other vulnerabilities within the identification infrastructure which allows them to gain financial benefits at the expense of another individual.  

The predominant focus within the United Kingdom remains with fraud committed with the purpose of obtaining financial benefits. The focus is mainly on the private sector but to a certain extent also on the public sector, with regard to potential for government benefit fraud. To speak in more specific terms, the focus within the United Kingdom is on both account take over and true name fraud. In an interview with Martin Gill, Professor of Criminology at Leicester University, he acknowledged how recently ‘false applications’ have been on the rise and as such have become an area of focus. After follow up questions, Gill clarified that he was referring to true name fraud, where perpetrators file applications, for credit cards, mortgages, etc., using both existing and false identities. This development could perhaps introduce or at least increase the use of other (sub-)concepts within the discussion within the United Kingdom.