UK gov to announce more data sharing in bid to combat scams

The UK government will today announce that more data on claimants and customers is to be shared between public sector and private firms in a bid to combat identity scams. Ministers will look to create a co-ordinated system to allow all claims for state funds or applications for mortgages and bank loans to be pre-checked by 2015.

Commenting, Bert Oosterhof, director of technology EMEA at Informatica, “There has been a history of disconnect between public and private sector data and it’s about time that this problem is tackled. Identity fraud is one of the main issues that stems from having inaccurate data and as we have seen, duplication of this data can make identify fraud unmanageable for both the public sector and private firms. This as a consequence is costing the UK millions of pounds.”

“Today, we have access to huge volumes of digital data on claimants and customers, and if managed effectively this puts the public sector and private firms in a very strong position. Using data management technology to share data between public sector and private firms will help to ensure that there is only one single view of this data and that multiple identities cannot exist on several systems, which we are currently seeing now. The long standing issue of identity scams in the UK needs to be addressed. In order to combat identity fraud, there needs to be a structure in place which joins all of this data together, ensuring that all identity related data can be searched, located and matched, including the matching of name variations when dealing with multilingual data. With innovative data management technology, we will not only see a major clampdown on fraudsters but also major improvements in transparency across public sector organisations and private firms.”