Closed petition Make identity theft a specific criminal offence

Closed on 1 December 2022

Identity theft is covered by various fraud offences, but these are linked to financial gain. As such we believe current legislation does not adequately protect people from identity theft, and that the act of identity theft should be made a specific criminal offence.

The current legislation prevents action being taken where a person is engaged in identity theft, but has not committed an offence under the Fraud Act 2006. It also doesn’t account for all the harmful effects of identity theft which can be long-term even in cases which do not lead to a financial loss.