Credit Card Fraud

HC Deb 19 July 2002 vol 389 cc679-80W

Tim Loughton

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps his Department has taken with credit card companies in 2002 to help combat credit card fraud. [71098]

Mr. Denham

[holding answer 18 July 2002]: The Home Office in association with the trade association for credit card companies has set up a two-year pilot of a unique policing unit, the Dedicated Cheque and Plastic Crime Unit. The unit, based in London, was launched in April 2002, with the Home Office providing 25 per cent of the funding requirement.

Total recorded crime by police force area England and Wales 1995–2000(3)
Police force area	Number of offences
	1995	1996	1997	1997–98(1)	1998–99(1)	1998–99(2)	1999–2000(3) New boundaries	2000–01	2001–02
Avon and Somerset*	152,886	156,557	143,128	144,556	131,955	150,089	147,104		149,254	178,991
Bedfordshire	51,104	52,004	47,426	45,250	43,947	49,076	53,607		49,627	52,239
Cambridgeshire	67,652	69,513	60,050	58,864	59,678	67,256	68,722		64,343	69,559
Cheshire	73,202	66,214	60,363	60,716	59,414	65,119	64,528		63,288	70,990
Cleveland	79,719	78,608	64,445	63,634	63,726	67,030	65,185		64,357	72,003
Cumbria*	41,230	39,739	35,810	35,777	35,171	40,202	37,729		32,873	37,324
Derbyshire	82,380	78,896	73,792	74,436	74,047	84,459	85,650		81,668	89,841
Devon and Cornwall	102,193	103,121	94,828	92,800	88,484	110,644	110,361		102,853	101,425
Dorset	54,582	49,731	44,104	43,536	43,903	52,755	52,332		50,320	54,951
Durham*	57,817	51,849	47,976	47,311	44,178	50,413	48,796		44,702	50,175
Essex	98,097	100,758	90,158	89,380	87,147	95,797	102,777	108,305	106,768	113,150
Gloucestershire	55,448	53,675	47,533	46,044	44,000	48,206	50,993		49,871	50,467
Greater Manchester*	327,994	327,976	307,403	315,000	336,172	362,450	377,086		363,454	380,801
Hampshire	134,319	135,915	124,306	121,042	115,008	128,253	135,174		133,553	135,961
Hertfordshire	55,891	54,441	50,050	49,426	46,255	49,309	52,741	65,015	64,215	67,437
Humberside	128,393	126,931	121,330	123,722	119,290	130,691	121,442		110,312	117,463
Kent*	155,251	147,980	122,955	118,892	I10,244	129,340	124,918		128,382	120,155
Lancashire*	124,921	122,487	119,755	116,947	105,161	118,085	108,866		117,633	137,760
Leicestershire	93,607	94,124	81,259	81,183	81,714	93,397	94,577		86,422	88,535
Lincolnshire*	48,015	47,069	43,381	41,792	39,718	46,670	46,170		44,884	49,797
London, City of	5,727	4,831	5,130	5,137	6,035	7,144	7,775		8,255	10,098
Merseyside	153,385	145,956	125,979	125,312	130,606	140,874	148,172		142,807	150,934
Metropolitan Police	817,082	841,784	791,732	778,279	767,880	934,254	1,052,047	1,016,742	994,233	1,057,360
Norfolk	51,716	55,314	53,332	52,580	51,167	57,129	59,387		57,259	58,954
Northamptonshire	56,524	57,378	54,047	53,645	55,842	65,466	61,240		56,731	60,485
Northumbria	194,141	169,656	140,166	134,457	132,588	151,298	142,279		134,777	139,130

The Home Office is also actively supporting the credit card companies in their work towards implementation of Chip and personal identification number (PIN) by April 2005. Under this initiative, microchips will be introduced into payment cards to help authentication. This will be combined with the introduction of PIN as a more secure method of authentication than signature.

Officials are in frequent contact with the Association for Payment Clearing Services (APACS) to discuss and encourage implementation of other credit card fraud reduction initiatives such as verification of Internet transactions.