Ministers plan U-turn over whether to include internet scams in the Online Safety Bill
Ministers are preparing to make a U-turn and include investment scams in the Online Safety Bill.
Hundreds of thousands of would-be investors are being conned out of their savings every year by internet adverts purporting to be from legitimate financial services firms.
The Government previously shied away from forcing internet giants to check the validity of adverts on their websites.
Online fraud: The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport has maintained that most financial harms will not be included in the Online Safety Bill
But ministers are under pressure to include online scams in the Bill to halt a ‘pandemic’ of fraud. Whitehall and City sources told the Mail they are expecting paid-for adverts, hosted by the likes of Google, Bing and Facebook, to be included in the Bill.
This would force internet firms to check whether adverts they show are ‘real’ – and stop taking money from criminals.
Some of these scammers pose as household names, such as Aviva or Hargreaves Lansdown, while others use their own name but set up a professional-looking website.
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