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<p>Online fraud is a pernicious crime that can cause devastating financial and emotional
harm to victims. The Government has been working with partners in the public and private
sectors to keep the public safe and bring these fraudsters to justice.</p><p>The National
Cyber Security Centre are leading the way combatting online scams through their Suspicious
Email Reporting Service which allows members of the public to forward any suspicious
emails and potential phishing scams more effectively and easily to law enforcement.
Since its inception in April 2020, it has already led to over 15 million reports and
the removal of over 105,000 scams across 192,000 URLs (as of October 2022).</p><p>We
have also introduced the Online Safety Bill, an ambitious and forward-looking piece
of legislation that will tackle online harms including fraud and fraudulent advertising.
DCMS is leading further work on an Online Advertising Programme. This will consider
further regulation of online advertising, including for fraud. In March 2022, DCMS
published their consultation which has now closed, and the Government will publish
its response in due course.</p><p>We have been working with industry on a voluntary
basis. On 21<sup>st</sup> October 2021, the newly relaunched Joint Fraud Taskforce
published three voluntary charters to combat fraud in the accountancy, retail banking
and telecommunications sectors. We have seen progress with one UK mobile operator
reporting a 97% decline in scam texts over a nine-month period.</p><p>We continue
to encourage the public to report fraud to Action fraud and to forward any suspicious
emails to report@phishing.gov.uk and suspicious texts to 7726, free of charge.</p>
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