Text scam farms to be banned
The ban, the first of its kind in Europe, will make the possession or supply of the devices without good reason illegal, with unlimited fines in England and Wales and a £5,000 fine in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Sim farms are devices that can be loaded with hundreds of sim cards to send out thousands of scam texts simultaneously.
The Home Office claims they helped fuel a 19 per cent increase in scams last year. Fraud now accounts for more than 40 per cent of all reported crime in England and Wales.
Fraud has also been put on a par with serious and organised crime as a national threat, requiring police forces to devote more resources to investigations.
In 2021, just 1,753 officers and staff were focused on economic crimes – 0.8 per cent of the total police workforce, even though fraud accounts for 41 per cent of all crime.
Lord Hanson, fraud minister, said: 'Fraud devastates lives, and I am determined to take the decisive action necessary to protect the public from these shameful criminals.
'Two-thirds of British adults say they've received a suspicious message on their phone – equivalent to more than 35 million people – which is why cracking down on sim farms is so vital to protecting the public.
'This marks a leap forward in our fight against fraud and will provide law enforcement and industry partners with the clarity they need to protect the public from this shameful crime.
'This Government will continue to take robust action to protect the public from fraud and deliver security and resilience through the Plan for Change.'
Nick Sharp, deputy director for fraud at the National Crime Agency, said: 'Fraud is the crime we are all most likely to experience, and one that causes victims significant emotional and financial harm.
'We know that fraud at scale is being facilitated by sim farms, which give criminals a means and an opportunity to contact victims at scale with relative ease.
'The ban announced today is very welcome. It will give us a vital tool to step up our fight against fraudsters, target the services they rely on, and better protect the public.'
The Government said the new ban will come into effect six months after the Crime and Policing Bill receives royal assent.
Scam text messages have become an increasingly common problem in recent years, with mobile operators regularly introducing new technology to help spot and block them before they reach the public.
Rachel Andrews, head of corporate security at Vodafone UK, said the ban on sim farms was an 'important step' in preventing fraud. 'Vodafone UK is committed to protecting all our customers from fraud, including activity enabled by sim farms,' she said.
'So far this year we have blocked over 38.5 million suspected scam messages, and in 2024 that figure reached over 73.5 million for the year. As an industry, UK telecoms operators have blocked more than one billion suspected scam messages since 2023.
'However, we cannot fully tackle fraud in isolation; collaboration between industry and the Government is crucial. This is a really important step taken by the Home Office and we fully support the inclusion of sim farms in the upcoming legislation.
'We look forward to working together on this issue.'
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