header-logo header-logo

Home Office considers crackdown on SIM farms

10 May 2023
Issue: 8024 / Categories: Legal News , Criminal , Technology , Fraud
printer mail-detail
The Home Office is consulting on proposals to ban SIM farms, as part of its Fraud Strategy.

It seeks views on proposals to ban the manufacture, import, sale, hire and possession of SIM farms (devices for more than four SIM cards) in the UK, and whether the ban should include other technologies used almost exclusively to commit fraud. The farms are used to send scam texts, send phishing messages and run scam call campaigns.

The consultation, ‘Preventing the use of SIM farms for fraud’, closes on 14 June.

The Home Office aims to cut fraud by 10% by 2025 through its Fraud Strategy, published this month.

Other proposals include specific Judicial College training for judges and magistrates on dealing with long and complex cases, investigating whether more fraud cases could be heard by magistrates, improving the disclosure regime and extending the use of serious crime prevention orders to disrupt criminal activities.

Issue: 8024 / Categories: Legal News , Criminal , Technology , Fraud
printer mail-details

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Birketts—trainee cohort

Birketts—trainee cohort

Firm welcomes new cohort of 29 trainee solicitors for 2025

Keoghs—four appointments

Keoghs—four appointments

Four partner hires expand legal expertise in Scotland and Northern Ireland

Brabners—Ben Lamb

Brabners—Ben Lamb

Real estate team in Yorkshire welcomes new partner

NEWS
Robert Taylor of 360 Law Services warns in this week's NLJ that adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) risks entrenching disadvantage for SME law firms, unless tools are tailored to their needs
From oligarchs to cosmetic clinics, strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) target journalists, activists and ordinary citizens with intimidating legal tactics. Writing in NLJ this week, Sadie Whittam of Lancaster University explores the weaponisation of litigation to silence critics
Delays and dysfunction continue to mount in the county court, as revealed in a scathing Justice Committee report and under discussion this week by NLJ columnist Professor Dominic Regan of City Law School. Bulk claims—especially from private parking firms—are overwhelming the system, with 8,000 cases filed weekly
Writing in NLJ this week, Thomas Rothwell and Kavish Shah of Falcon Chambers unpack the surprise inclusion of a ban on upwards-only rent reviews in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve charts the turbulent progress of the Employment Rights Bill through the House of Lords, in this week's NLJ
back-to-top-scroll