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<p>The Government is aware that fraudsters are exploiting the pandemic to commit opportunistic
crimes such as fraud. Along with partners in law enforcement, the public sector and
the private and third sectors, we have been implementing measures to ensure the public
has the protection and advice needed to protect themselves from these crimes.</p><p>The
Home Office collects data on individual fraud categories, some of which will be committed
online, but we are unable to provide a breakdown of these offences.</p><p>The Home
Office collects quarterly data on the number of reports of fraud made to Action Fraud
that have been recorded as criminal offences by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau
(NFIB). The most recently available data for the year ending June 2020 have been published
by the Office for National Statistics and can currently be found in Table A5 here:</p><p>https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesappendixtables</p><p>Our
efforts include working with the National Cyber Security Centre to establish a new
Suspicious Email Reporting Service. This service allows the public to report potential
scams safely and effectively. To date, this has led to the removal of over 22000 scams.
Members of the public can currently forward suspicious emails to the dedicated email
address: report@phishing.gov.uk</p><p>In addition, in 2019 the Government launched
specialist Cyber Crime Units in every local police force, in order to improve the
local response, provide an effective investigative response and an improved victim
experience. The Government also provides funding for the Cyber PROTECT police officers
and staff in all policing regions and local forces, and Cyber Resilience Centres,
which are now live in each region, providing cyber security advice and support to
micro and small SMEs.</p><p>However, law enforcement cannot do this alone. The best
way to deal with these scams is for the public to be well-informed on how to protect
themselves. That is why we have launched a gov.uk page that contains easy-to-follow
steps for people to spot potential frauds and the steps they can take to avoid them.
It also signposts advice and support to those who may unfortunately have fallen victim.
This page can currently be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-fraud-and-cyber-crime</p>
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