Government measures implemented to prevent identity fraud

A report about the economic and social impacts of identity crime has been released by the federal government.

The Identity Crime and Misuse in Australia (ICAMIA) Annual Report revealed just 12 identity fraud investigations this year, worth $300,000 to taxpayers.

Early preventive actions are enabling the Department of Human Services to focus on tackling the more complex, elaborate and difficult to uncover fraud cases.

The use of the Document Verification Service (DVS) has reduced the opportunity for false identities to be created, as well as preventing fraud attempts.

In addition to DVS, the government has implemented sophisticated data matching analysis. The data analysis process helped detect a 70-year-old Queensland man, who claimed a second age pension and disability support pension using a fabricated identity. The man pleaded guilty to fraudulently claiming over $199,000 and was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment.

In addition to this, an emerging risk for identity fraud is the hijacking of payments online. Technology has now been implemented that detects and prevents this type of identity fraud in real time.

This new capability has been particularly successful and led to the disruption of 56 attempts to redirect payments by assuming a customer’s identity over the last 12 months.

These discreet preventive measures combined with the high-profile work of Taskforce Integrity are working to reduce the incidence and severity of identity fraud committed against DHS and subsequently taxpayers.

Image credit: ©iStockphoto.com/Yunus Arakon