Closed petition Require credit reference agencies to offer free fraud prevention notifications

Closed on 7 January 2024

A growing number of people are subject to having their personal data leaked. In the recent MOVEit hack, millions of people's personal data was made available to fraudsters. Protection is available from credit reference agencies but is expensive.

The Government should require credit reference agencies to provide a UK-wide free notification scheme. A good model is the HM Land Registry Property Alert notification. Something similar could be done for credit reference agencies, whereby people register their personal email address or phone number. Should that person's details be used to obtain credit, at the point of a credit check an email notification or text message would be sent to the person's nominated contact method to alert them to potential fraud. It has to be a free service otherwise the majority of people won’t use it.