Stephen Hammond – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Hammond on 2016-09-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information her Department holds on the incidence of vishing fraud.

Brandon Lewis

The Home Office do not hold any data on the incidence of vishing fraud. Vishing is when fraudsters obtain personal details of a victim by phone, usually with the intention of using this information to commit fraud. It is an enabler to commit fraud, rather than a fraud type in itself. The Home Office only collects data on the number of incidents of frauds, with no breakdown currently available for enablers used to commit them.

The Joint Fraud Taskforce, which brings together government, law enforcement and industry is considering options to reduce social engineering, alongside other initiatives to combat fraud more broadly.