New online safety law ‘will stop hundreds of thousands of frauds’

Hundreds of thousands of attempted online frauds will be thwarted by forcing social media companies to be more pro-active against cyber criminals, a police chief said on Monday.

James Thomson, chairman of the City of London Corporation’s police authority board which oversees the City of London Police, said the Online Safety Bill would have a significant impact on the growing number of scams targeting people on their mobile phones, computers and other devices.

The bill, currently being pushed through Parliament by Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, will force social media firms to treat fraud as a “priority harm”, meaning they will have to take more steps to prevent criminals using their platforms for such offences rather than responding only reactively.

A new legal duty will also be imposed on the biggest social media platforms and search engines to stop paid-for fraudulent adverts appearing on their services.

Mr Thomson told the Standard: “I think this will stop hundreds of thousands of fraud attempts.” He said social media and technology giants currently did not have the financial incentive of banks and insurance companies to crack down on fraud. “This will force them to be pro-active against cyber-enabled crime,” he added.

Two key changes on fraud were made to the bill this year after calls for tighter rules.

The new duty to tackle fraudulent paid-for adverts was added onto social media giants and search engines.

It means they will have to put in place “proportionate” systems to prevent or minimise the publication and hosting of such fraudulent adverts on their service and remove them when they are made aware of them.

Fraud was also classed as a “priority harm” along with terrorism, child sexual abuse, revenge porn and a range of other crimes. This step is likely to disrupt fraudulent activity such as scam dating websites and phishing attempts.

But with millions of such crimes each year, Mr Thomson said: “I would not wish anyone to become complacent just as a result of the introduction of this legislation. It will make it harder for the criminals but they will still be out there.”