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Home Office death list 'stops ID fraud'

I impersonate dead people

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The Home Office today said its new weekly register of deaths mailout is "hastening the demise of a cruel type of identity fraud" by catching pension cheats who impersonate dead people.

So far four "carefully vetted" organisations have been approved by the General Register Office (GRO) - part of the Identity and Passport Service - to recieve copies of 12,000 dead people's personal details each week. It allows specialised "mortality screening" firms to check whether pension claims are legit.

Junior minister Meg Hillier said: "The use of death records in this way will have a dramatic impact on fraudsters abusing people's deaths - a crime which causes financial and personal distress to both businesses and individuals alike."

Faraday Tracing Bureau is one of the early users of the GRO list, and carries out checks for 200 pension firms. Sales director Chris Rattenbury said: "Firms undertaking mortality screening were finding on average that one in four hundred pensions were being claimed fraudulently sometimes for as long as ten years.

"This new process will stop this kind of fraud completely."

The other mortality screeners so far approved are Tracesmart, Synectics Solutions and Experian.

The scheme began at the end of September under new data sharing powers assumed by the GRO under the Police and Justice Act 2006. The vetting criteria and list of eligible organisations are here. ®

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Latest Comments

Ho ho

"zaNu Labour"

LOL!

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But will they still be able to vote?

Mine has "campaign manager" across the back and absentee ballots in the pocket.

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expect more of the same

Just another chapter in (the bankrupt) UK.gov's master plan of selling all the information they collect on UK citizens to the highest bidder.

The one's i know about so far are:

DVLA

National DNA database (for select 'research' purposes, aye right)

Voters Roll

In the pipeline for the future:

Selling your medical records (after being securely anonomised of course. They'll probably get expert consultation from Google first)

Punting as much off the National Identity Register as they can

Selling details about your daily travel habits (when Road Pricing 2.0 comes in) AND passing any alleged infringments to the Police to enable them to collect fine revenue

Selling the info about your kids from Contactpoint to the highest bidder

If we vote these cretins in again, then we deserve every bid of what they have planned for us...

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