ONS records over 6m cases of online fraud and cyber-crime in England and Wales in a year
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has revealed that there were almost six million instances of cyber-crime and fraud recorded in England and Wales in the year ending March 2016.
Cyber Crime
During the period, two million computer misuse offences were recorded on top of 3.8m fraud offences. Overall, ONS estimates a total of 6.3m crimes in the period - notably a six per cent decrease.
Londoners were found to be slightly more at risk than those in other areas although John Flatley, head of crime statistics at the ONS, said that the “risk is spread across all demographics”.
The data will now be included in the Crime Survey for England and Wales, with an estimated one in 10 of the population affected by an online crime.
Flatley concluded: “This is the first time we have published official estimates of fraud and computer misuse from our victimisation survey.
“Together, these offences are similar in magnitude to the existing headline figures covering all other crime survey offences. However, it would be wrong to conclude that actual crime levels have doubled, since the survey previously did not cover these offences.”