Victims of phishing scams 172/24

FOI Reference: 172/24

Request:

I would like you to provide the following information:

1)The number of people who have reported being a victim of phishing scams for the years 2019,2020,2021,2022 and 2023.

2)How many of these reports how many are related to phishing scam links pretending to be “Royal Mail”? Of these cases can I have a breakdown of the outcome and/or current stage of investigation?

Response:

Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1(1)(a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Section 1(1)(b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held.

I can confirm that the cost of determining whether any information relative to this request is or isn’t held is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond therefore we are withholding the whole of the requested information since we consider that the Section 12 (2) exemption the Cost of Compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit applies to it.

Where exemptions are relied upon Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Dyfed Powys Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which: (a) states that fact, (b) specifies the exemption in question and (c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies. The following exemption has been applied to the whole of the information you have requested:

Section 12(2) – The cost of compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit

Section 12(2) states: “…Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation to comply with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of complying with that paragraph alone would exceed the appropriate limit.”

The cost of determining what information is held, if any, relevant to your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the “appropriate level” as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. It is estimated that it would exceed 18 hours (i.e. minimum of 60 hours) to comply with your request. The regulations can be located @ www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2004/20043244.htm

The Freedom of Information Department has been advised that the information in relation to the Q2 of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format. This is due to the fact that we cannot apply an applicable filter in relation to “royal mail” and each relevant record would need to manually reviewed to ascertain if it was related to a royal mail phising scam.

It has been established there are 725 relevant records that would require individual interrogation and an estimated 5 minutes per record needed to review for relevant information. The relevant time estimate is detailed below:

May 2021-Dec 2021 -166 records x 5 minutes per record = 13.8 hours

Jan 2022-Dec 2022 - 344 records x 5 minutes per record = 28.7 hours

Jan 2023- Dec 2023- 199 records x 5 minutes per record = 16.6 hours

Jan 24- to date- 16 records x 5 minutes per record = 1.3 hours

Therefore total time estimate to complete whole request = 60.4 hours.

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for the WHOLE of this request under Section 17(5) A public authority which, in relation to any request for information, is relying on a claim that section 12 or section 14 applies must, within the time for complying with section 1(1), give the applicant a notice stating that fact. You may wish to refine and resubmit your request so that it reduces the time shown above to fall within the 18 hours. Should you require any further advice in relation to this matter please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.

Although excess cost removed the force’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill, I have supplied information, relative to your request, retrieved or available before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded. I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of your request.

Please note: The figures given are not a accurate reflection of the levels of Phising Fraud, and also why Q1 of your FOI request is not easily answerable by Dyfed Powys Police :

Firstly, Phishing is not recorded in force as a crime.

The national reporting centre for fraud is Action Fraud (the police wing of which is the National Intelligence Bureau) and they collate all fraud reports across England & Wales.

We provide a reporting service in force, so that those that report fraud to force, as opposed directly to Action Fraud, get a service and we keep a record of the reports we have received. However, prior to May 2021 we did not record the type of fraud being reported.

I can therefore only tell you that from May 2021 the number of phishing reports made to force were as follows:

May 21 –Dec 21: 166

Jan 22 – Dec 22 : 344

Jan 23 – Dec 23: 199

Jan 24- date: 16

You must remember that these figures are only those reports made to force and excludes the reports that were made directly to Action Fraud.

You may wish to consider contacting Action Fraud, Contact us | Action Fraud.

                                                                                                           

It should be noted that as a result of the systems adopted by Dyfed-Powys Police in relation to the recording of such information that the information released may or may not be accurate.

Furthermore, it should also be noted that Police forces in the United Kingdom are routinely required to provide crime statistics to government bodies and the recording criteria is set nationally. However, the systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the crime data. It should be noted that for these reasons this force's response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other response you may receive.

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 13/03/2024)