Car security What is car fraud?
Is our car registration system failing drivers?
Car fraud is essentially identity theft. Car fraud victims include car owners, used car buyers and businesses targeted by car criminals.
Much like personal ID theft, car fraud takes many guises – from assisting relatively minor car offences to enabling multimillion-pound organised crime.
But if it’s possible to fake a car’s ID just to steal a tank of petrol, is our car registration system too readily failing innocent drivers? We’ve spoken to those closest to the car fraud battle to find out.
Number plates key to car fraud
Number plates – the most obvious sign of a car’s identity – have been around since 1904, with the current seven-character number plate format dating back to 2001.
But identity misuse is too common and the thriving personalised number plate market – a tidy little earner for the government – could even encourage lawbreaking by making it harder to trace a car’s true ID.
The recent furore over some cars’ number plates appearing on Google Street View has highlighted public concern over the security of the UK’s car registration system.
If a crook knows what model of car you have, where you live and its number plate, they’re well on the way to stealing your car's ID to use elsewhere – or even just to register your car to their address before they come around and pinch your keys and the car itself.
How safe is your car’s identity?
Number plates are easily stolen or illegally obtained for any number of purposes, and law enforcers at every level have their own take on the current car registration system – though few that we spoke to are fans of the UK's car registration scheme.
Mike Franklin from Northamptonshire Police is a leading exponent of using automated number plate recognition (ANPR) systems to reduce crime.
He told us: ‘We rely heavily on the number plate’s accuracy, and our ability to detect it readily, to carry out our work. On paper, 99.3% of vehicles comply with the number plate rules.
'This sounds impressive, but the problem for law enforcement agencies is that the 0.7% non-compliant vehicles amount to some 231,000 cars.’
This creates a huge headache for police forces, says Superintendent Richard List of Aylesbury Vale: ‘Theft of registration plates accounted for nearly 30% of thefts from motor vehicles in my district last year. Many thefts are linked to “bilkings” (taking fuel and driving off without paying).
‘Number plates are too easily obtained – two screws and they’re off. There are few forensic clues at the scene, few witnesses and even fewer arrests. These crimes are minor, but they inflate crime figures and pursuing them can lead to a misappropriation of resources.’
