Departmental Influences
on Policy Design
How the U.K. is confusing identity fraud with other policy agendas.
Problems of identity fraud
are becoming common in
all countries and increasingly governments are expected to
be taking action to address these
problems. Yet we understand little
about the nature of the problem,
and even less about proportionate
solutions.
In many cases, identity fraud
arises in relation to financial
transactions, for example, when
an individual’s identity is used to
fraudulently open a bank account
or withdraw money. Occasionally,
however, it is more than just
financial inconvenience that
results. For example, Derek Bond
from Bristol, U.K. was arrested in
Durban, South Africa in February
2003 for crimes committed by a
Las Vegas criminal who had
stolen Bond’s identity documents.
Bond spent three weeks of his
vacation in jail at the behest of
the U.S. Department of Justice
before the truth was uncovered.
Individual cases capture our
attention but figures are often better to focus our concerns. The
scale of identity fraud is often difficult to measure, in part because a
variety of definitions of identity
fraud (or identity theft) exist [ 2]
and there is no certainty that different reporting organizations are
using the same definitions of identity fraud in compiling their figures. In addition, it is often
unclear as to whether the reported
fraud is due to problems of identity or other matters [ 8]. For
example, in 2006 the U.K. government announced that the cost to
the U.K. economy of identity
fraud had risen from £ 1. 3 billion
in 2002 to £ 1. 7 billion per
annum1 with part of this difference
arising from the inclusion of
approximately £400 million from
sources “not included in the 2002
study.” In addition, it was claimed
that losses from fraudulent use of
payment cards, or using a fictitious
identity to obtain such a card, was
£504.8 million per year. The government had attributed that figure
to the U.K. Payments Association,
APACS. However, when
approached by the media, APACS
reported that this form of identity
fraud had totalled only £ 36. 9 million in 2004, and in the first six
1Cabinet Office, Identity Fraud: A Study, 2002;
www.ips.gov.uk/identity/downloads/id-fraud-report.pdf.
Home Office, Updated Estimate of the Cost of Identity
Fraud to the U.K. Economy, 2006;
www.ips.gov.uk/identity/downloads/FINAL-estimate-
for-annual-cost-of-fraud-table-v1-2.pdf.
months of 2005 they had already
experienced a 16% drop in fraud,
principally as a result of the introduction of chip and PIN technology for point-of-sale verification
(replacing signatures), according to
APACS spokesman Mark Bower-man. 2 In 2006, there was a further
3% drop in the amount of money
lost to credit card fraud. 3
Given this complexity in even
identifying identity fraud, it is not
immediately obvious which
branch of government should be
responsible for implementing measures for combating the problem.
As the table here indicates, different countries place responsibility
for addressing identity fraud
within the scope of different government departments (see [ 7]).
The choice of government department that designs the policy on
this issue directly influences the
kinds of approaches and other policy agendas enrolled in the solution. The response and emphasis of
a department of consumer affairs is
likely to be very different from that
2McCue, A. Government ID fraud claims: Are they
what they seem? Costs UK £ 1. 7 bn a year? Figures “not
an exact science”... Silicon.com 2006; www.silicon.
com/publicsector/0,3800010403,39156140, 00.htm.
3BBC News, Reduction in card fraud in 2006, 2007;
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6445409.stm.
