Member

As AI and other programmes continue to expand and improve, and cross-border connectivity becomes ever more accessible, online fraud will only get worse. It feels as though we are witnessing the beginnings of a boom in a new type of crime. The incentive is there for the Government to legislate for a specific offence to attempt to curb this, yet despite this data and the dire projections that we face, there is no legislative framework that covers online identity fraud. The Theft Act 1968 covers the dishonest appropriation of someone else’s property; this extends to identity. The Computer Misuse Act 1990 provides for the illegal accessing of another’s computer; the Identity Documents Act 2010 makes the possession, rather than the theft, of another’s identity document illegal.