UK claims world first agreement for Big Tech action on fraud
Tech firms say they are already doing much to tackle fraud
A glitzy ceremony yesterday obscured details of exactly what the UK government achieved by getting big tech platforms to sign its voluntary Online Fraud Charter.
Big tech and social media firms and marketplaces have signed a voluntary agreement to help the British government stamp out fraudulent ads and scammers, while the newly appointed Online Safety Regulator considers plans to impose rules on them.
The government hailed its Online Fraud Charter as a "world first" agreement. It is aimed at getting tech firms to do more to stop the rising tide of scammers and con artists hooking the unsuspecting with fake ads, offers and dating profiles.
But it was unclear which of the long list of measures in the Charter were already being followed by those firms who signed up to it yesterday, in the glitzy Lancaster House, a mansion near Buckingham Palace the Foreign Office uses for diplomatic functions.
Big tech firms have been working with governments for years to implement measures to stop fraudsters, and are vocal advocates of the ways in which they already seek to protect their users. However, some regions, such as the EU, want to enshrine these protections into law.
The UK Home Office, in contrast, celebrated its agreement for being voluntary, rather than dictating orders to the private sector. It has followed a similar path with its plans for AI regulation, in contrast to the more heavy-handed course the EU is following.
However, despite tech firms advocating for their protection measures, fraud still accounts for 40% of all crime in England and Wales, the government said in a statement promoting its agreement yesterday. Eighty percent of the fraud that comprises the various forms of "push payment" scammers comes from social media.
The government did not say how much of total fraud was attributed to push payment, and how much to other crimes such as money laundering, corporate fraud and insider trading.
Antony Walker, deputy CEO of trade association techUK, which also signed the charter, said it "builds on measures tech firms already have in place" to catch online fraudsters. The agreement will create "more consistent cooperation" between government, police and industry, he said in a statement on the government's announcement.
Consumer finance campaigner Martin Lewis, of MoneySavingExpert.com, said the Charter's request (remember: it's all voluntary) for firms to allow customers to report scammers within two clicks was in line with his own demands. Likewise for the Charter's request for firms to vet advertisers before working with them, and to ward against web links that redirect people to fraudulent websites.
"We are in the midst of an epidemic of scams," he said.
Marketplaces Amazon and eBay signed the Charter in Lancaster House yesterday, along with representatives of Facebook, Google, Instagram, TikTok, X/Twitter, SnapChat and LinkedIn. Match Group, the firm behind dating apps such as Tinder and Match.com, also signed, as did YouTube and Microsoft.
In addition to covering fraud, the signatories agreed to measures to prevent children seeing adult adverts for things such as alcohol and porn, and to cooperate more with police. It pre-empts work that online safety regulator Ofcom is doing to devise rules to protect children from harmful and illegal content online.
Much of the work on the Charter emerged from the Online Advertising Programme, a government initiative determining what regulation might be needed to govern the adtech industry, which aims to determine just how much of a problem harmful adverts really are.