Sky News Articles

Facebook was responsible for 94% of the 69 million child sex abuse images reported by US technology companies last year.
The figures emerged as seven countries, including the UK, published a statement on Sunday warning of the impact of end-to-end encryption on public safety online.

Facebook has previously announced plans to fully encrypt communications in its Messenger app, as well as its Instagram Direct service – on top of WhatsApp, which is already encrypted – meaning no one apart from the sender and recipient can read or modify messages.
The social media site said the changes are designed to improve user privacy on all of its platforms.
But law enforcement agencies fear the move will have a devastating impact on their ability to target paedophiles and protect children online.

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Some 16.9 million referrals were made by US tech firms to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) last year, including 69 million images of children being abused – up 50% on the previous year.

Some 94% of the reports, which include the worst category of images, came from Facebook, Home Office officials said.

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But the National Crime Agency (NCA) has warned the number could drop to zero if Facebook presses ahead with end-to-end encryption.

Facebook privacy rules could help abusers, Zuckerberg warned

Robert Jones, the NCA director responsible for tackling child sexual abuse, said of the plan: “The lights go out, the door gets slammed, and we lose all of that insight. It is as simple as that.
“And nothing, you know we’re relying on the best technical expertise… in the UK, the same people that keep the UK safe against terrorists, hostile states, cyber attacks, are telling us there is no viable alternative. I believe them. And I am deeply concerned.”
The NCA believes there are at least 300,000 people in the UK who pose a sexual threat to children, with 86,832 UK-related referrals to NCMEC last year, including 52% from Facebook and 11% from Instagram.
Mr Jones said industry reporting led to the arrest of more than 4,500 offenders and the safeguarding of around 6,000 children in the UK in the year to June 2020.

Image: Facebook also owns Instagram and WhatsApp
He continued: “The end-to-end encryption model that’s being proposed takes out of the game one of the most successful ways for us to identify leads, and that layers on more complexity to our investigations, our digital media, our digital forensics, our profiling of individuals and our live intelligence leads, which allow us to identify victims and safeguard them.
“What we risk losing with these changes is the content, which gives us the intelligence leads to pursue those offenders and rescue those children.”
Home Office officials say Facebook has not published credible plans to protect child safety a year on from Home Secretary Priti Patel’s open letter to the firm’s co-founder Mark Zuckerberg asking it to halt its end-to-end encryption proposals.

Image: Priti Patel has said Facebook has not done enough to protect public safety
A statement signed by Ms Patel, along with the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India and Japan – whose populations represent around a fifth of Facebook’s two billion global users – is calling for tech companies to ensure they don’t blind themselves to criminality on their platforms.
Ms Patel said: “We owe it to all of our citizens, especially our children, to ensure their safety by continuing to unmask sexual predators and terrorists operating online.”
The statement calls for public safety to be embedded in systems, for law enforcement to be given access to content, and for engagement with governments.
It reads: “Encryption is an existential anchor of trust in the digital world and we do not support counter-productive and dangerous approaches that would materially weaken or limit security systems
“Particular implementations of encryption technology, however, pose significant challenges to public safety, including to highly vulnerable members of our societies like sexually exploited children.”

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From 2019: Teens exposed to highly charged political ads on Facebook and Instagram

A Facebook spokesman said: “We’ve long argued that end-to-end encryption is necessary to protect people’s most private information.
“In all of these countries, people prefer end-to-end encrypted messaging on various apps because it keeps their messages safe from hackers, criminals, and foreign interference.
“Facebook has led the industry in developing new ways to prevent, detect, and respond to abuse while maintaining high security, and we will continue to do so.”

The Duchess of Sussex has spoken about the “almost unsurvivable” online abuse she experienced in a podcast to mark World Mental Health Day.
Appearing alongside her husband Prince Harry on the popular Teenage Therapy podcast, Meghan said she was told that “in 2019, I was the most trolled person in the entire world – male or female”.

“[For] eight months of that, I wasn’t even visible, I was on maternity leave with the baby – but what was able to be manufactured and churned out, it’s almost unsurvivable, it’s so big you can’t even think what that feels like,” she said.
Introducing themselves as Harry and Meghan, the pair talked about their experiences of loss and grief, with Harry stating that “every single one of us” should be talking about our mental health.
Meghan said her mental health suffered due to the trolling she was targeted with.

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“I don’t care if you’re 15 or 25, if people are saying things about you that aren’t true, what that does to your mental and emotional health is so damaging,” she said.

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Meghan on ‘toxicity’ of clickbait

This was especially an issue for many during the coronavirus lockdown, she said, when “if you’re not in school then you are finding yourself on your devices or online more”.

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“Yes, it’s a great way to connect but it also ends up being a place where there is a lot of disconnected,” she added.
“We all know what it feels like to have our feelings hurt, we all know what it feels like to be isolated, and I think that’s why the work you guys are doing here is so important,” she said.
Harry said it is “very easy to be sucked in and consumed by negativity”, but everyone has “the choice to be able to cut that out of our lives”.
He said: “Hate following has become a thing, you don’t need to do that. Just as much as we worry about, be concerned, and take notice of what we put in our bellies as a diet, the same applies for our eyes and our mind, what we’re consuming is affecting us.
“For me, I made the choice not to read it, not to see it, and to remove myself from that, and to very much focus on the uplifting and the hopeful side.”
The podcast follows the couple speaking to the London Evening Standard to mark the start of Black History Month, with both sharing their hopes for equality
Harry, 36, explained how he had become more aware of issues surrounding race after his marriage to Meghan, 39.

Scientists say they have discovered the fastest possible speed of sound.
Researchers found soundwaves travelled at 36km per second in solid atomic hydrogen.

That is about twice the speed at which they can travel through diamond – the hardest known material in the world.

Image: You can hear a train through the tracks more quickly than through the air
Until now, it was not known whether there was an upper speed limit, either through solids or liquids.
Soundwaves go at different speeds, depending on what they are travelling through.

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They pass through solids more quickly than through liquids or gas – which is why a train can be heard sooner through the tracks than through the air.

Scientists tested a wide range of materials, and found the speed of sound in solid atomic hydrogen is close to the theoretical fundamental limit.

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The research, published in the journal Science Advances, came from a collaboration between Queen Mary University of London, the University of Cambridge and the Institute for High Pressure Physics in Moscow, Russia.
The study of soundwaves has important scientific applications.
Professor Chris Pickard, Professor of Materials Science at the University of Cambridge, said: “Seismologists use soundwaves initiated by earthquakes deep in the Earth interior to understand the nature of seismic events and the properties of Earth composition.
“They’re also of interest to materials scientists because soundwaves are related to important elastic properties including the ability to resist stress.”
Professor Kostya Trachenko, Professor of Physics at Queen Mary University of London, said: “We believe the findings of this study could have further scientific applications by helping us to find and understand limits of different properties such as viscosity and thermal conductivity relevant for high-temperature superconductivity, quark-gluon plasma and even black hole physics.”

Pakistan has banned the TikTok app for failing to filter out “immoral and indecent” content, regulators have said.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said the ban was due to “complaints from different segments of the society against immoral and indecent content on the video-sharing application”.

TikTok reportedly has 20 million monthly active users in the country.
And it was the third most downloaded app after WhatsApp and Facebook over the last 12 months, according to an analytics firm.
In July, Pakistan issued a final warning to TikTok due to content of a provocative nature.

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Image: The app has already been banned in India
The decision to ban it was said to have been taken after prime minister Imran Khan took a keen interest in the matter.

A Pakistani official said Mr Khan has asked telecommunication authorities to ensure vulgar content was blocked.

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TikTok has faced increasing scrutiny as its popularity continues to grow globally.
Governments in Australia and the US have cracked down on the Chinese-owned app, with concerns about privacy and security over its links to Beijing.
Tiktok was banned by India in June, which at the time was its largest market by users. Security concerns were cited as the reason during a border dispute with China.
The PTA has said it is “open for engagement” and would review the ban if TikTok could provide a satisfactory way to moderate unlawful content.
Tiktok, owned by China-based ByteDance, said it is “committed to following the law in markets where the app is offered”.
It added: “We have been in regular communication with the PTA and continue to work with them. We are hopeful to reach a conclusion that helps us continue to serve the country’s vibrant and creative online community.”
The company has also long denied that its links with China pose any security concerns in other countries.
Usama Khilji, director of Bolo Bhi – a Pakistani group advocating for the rights of internet users – said the ban undermines the government’s dreams of a digital Pakistan.
He added: “The government blocking an entertainment app that is used by millions of people, and is a source of income for thousands of content creators, especially those coming from smaller towns and villages, is a travesty to democratic norms and fundamental rights as guaranteed by the constitution.”

A widely-circulated open letter calling on governments to pursue herd immunity is counting homeopaths, therapists and fake names among its “medical” signatories, leading to accusations that it falsely represents scientific support for the controversial position.
The Great Barrington Declaration, a letter organised by prominent advocates of herd immunity, claims to have been signed by more than 15,000 scientists and medical practitioners, as well as more than 150,000 members of the general public.

Yet Sky News found dozens of fake names on the list of medical signatories, which anyone can add to if they tick a box and enter a name. These included Dr. I.P. Freely, Dr. Person Fakename and Dr. Johnny Bananas, who listed himself as a “Dr of Hard Sums”.

Scientists call for herd immunity approach
Top scientists call for herd immunity approach – as government’s ‘soft touch’ criticised

One medical professional on the list gives his name as Dr Harold Shipman, a general practitioner in the United Kingdom.
A GP called Harold Shipman killed more than 200 of his patients before he was arrested in 1998.

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Other famous names included Dominic Cummings, who is described as “PhD Durham Univercity”.

Sky News also found 18 self-declared homeopaths listed on the open letter as medical practitioners, despite the fact that homeopathy has no scientific underpinning or clinical evidence to support its use.

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In addition, the letter has been signed by well over 100 therapists, including massage therapists, hypnotherapists, psychotherapists and one Mongolian Khöömii Singer who describes himself as a “therapeutic sound practitioner”.
Public health experts accused the letter, which has been used as evidence for the idea of a rift in the scientific community, of misrepresenting the level of support for the controversial concept of herd immunity.
Professor Martin McKee, Professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said it reminded him of “the messaging used to undermine public health policies on harmful substances, such as tobacco”.
As advocates of herd immunity have become more vocal, media reports have described scientists as “divided”.
Yet although herd immunity has some prominent backers, and the Great Barrington Declaration has been signed by many respected scientists and medical professionals, the vast majority of specialists in the field reject the approach.

Image: One of the signed names was Dominic Cummings of ‘Durham Univercity’
Professor McKee added: “Leaving aside the powerful arguments against this declaration on grounds of science and feasibility, we have consistent evidence that a clear majority of the British public support necessary measures to reduce the spread of the virus or would go even further.
“Yet the campaign behind this declaration promotes a completely different picture.”
The letter, called the Great Barrington Declaration after the United States town where it was written, was initiated by Professor Martin Kulldorff, Professor Jay Bhattacharya and Professor Sunetra Gupta.
It calls on governments to allow younger and less vulnerable people to catch coronavirus, thereby encouraging “herd immunity” among the population, while people who would be hit especially hard by the virus are given “focused protection”.
Professor Bhattacharya, professor of medicine of Stanford University, told Sky News: “We do not have the resources to audit each signature, especially given the incredible interest that the Great Barrington Declaration has drawn. It is unfortunate that some people have abused our trust by adding false names, but I suppose it is inevitable.
“Still – given the volume of correspondence I have received from medical and public health professionals, as well as scientists and epidemiologists, it is clear that a very large number of experts resonate with the message of the declaration and its call for a focused protection policy.”

A widely-circulated open letter calling on governments to pursue herd immunity is counting homeopaths, therapists and fake names among its “medical” signatories, leading to accusations that it falsely represents scientific support for the controversial position.
The Great Barrington Declaration, a letter organised by prominent advocates of herd immunity, claims to have been signed by more than 15,000 scientists and medical practitioners, as well as more than 150,000 members of the general public.

Yet Sky News found dozens of fake names on the list of medical signatories, which anyone can add to if they tick a box and enter a name. These included Dr. I.P. Freely, Dr. Person Fakename and Dr. Johnny Bananas, who listed himself as a “Dr of Hard Sums”.

Scientists call for herd immunity approach
Top scientists call for herd immunity approach – as government’s ‘soft touch’ criticised

One medical professional on the list gives his name as Dr Harold Shipman, a general practitioner in the United Kingdom.
A GP called Harold Shipman killed more than 200 of his patients before he was arrested in 1998.

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Other famous names included Dominic Cummings, who is described as “PhD Durham Univercity”.

Sky News also found 18 self-declared homeopaths listed on the open letter as medical practitioners, despite the fact that homeopathy has no scientific underpinning or clinical evidence to support its use.

More from UK

In addition, the letter has been signed by well over 100 therapists, including massage therapists, hypnotherapists, psychotherapists and one Mongolian Khöömii Singer who describes himself as a “therapeutic sound practitioner”.
Public health experts accused the letter, which has been used as evidence for the idea of a rift in the scientific community, of misrepresenting the level of support for the controversial concept of herd immunity.
Professor Martin McKee, Professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said it reminded him of “the messaging used to undermine public health policies on harmful substances, such as tobacco”.
As advocates of herd immunity have become more vocal, media reports have described scientists as “divided”.
Yet although herd immunity has some prominent backers, and the Great Barrington Declaration has been signed by many respected scientists and medical professionals, the vast majority of specialists in the field reject the approach.

Image: One of the signed names was Dominic Cummings of ‘Durham Univercity’
Professor McKee added: “Leaving aside the powerful arguments against this declaration on grounds of science and feasibility, we have consistent evidence that a clear majority of the British public support necessary measures to reduce the spread of the virus or would go even further.
“Yet the campaign behind this declaration promotes a completely different picture.”
The letter, called the Great Barrington Declaration after the United States town where it was written, was initiated by Professor Martin Kulldorff, Professor Jay Bhattacharya and Professor Sunetra Gupta.
It calls on governments to allow younger and less vulnerable people to catch coronavirus, thereby encouraging “herd immunity” among the population, while people who would be hit especially hard by the virus are given “focused protection”.
Professor Bhattacharya, professor of medicine of Stanford University, told Sky News: “We do not have the resources to audit each signature, especially given the incredible interest that the Great Barrington Declaration has drawn. It is unfortunate that some people have abused our trust by adding false names, but I suppose it is inevitable.
“Still – given the volume of correspondence I have received from medical and public health professionals, as well as scientists and epidemiologists, it is clear that a very large number of experts resonate with the message of the declaration and its call for a focused protection policy.”

More people are being born without wisdom teeth and an extra artery in their arm as a result of a human “microevolution” in recent years, a study has found.
Babies now have shorter faces, smaller jaws and extra bones in their legs and feet, a study in the Journal of Anatomy found.

Australian researchers who worked on the paper claim the human race is evolving faster than it has done at any point in the past 250 years.
Over time, human faces have got shorter, which has seen our mouths get smaller, with less room for as many teeth.
As part of natural selection and our increased ability to chew food, this has resulted in fewer people being born with wisdom teeth, Dr Teghan Lucas from Flinders University, Adelaide, said.

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“A lot of people thought humans have stopped evolving. But our study shows we are still evolving – faster than at any point in the past 250 years,” she added.

An artery in the forearm that supplies blood to the hand has become more prevalent in newborns since the 19th century, the study also found.

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The median artery used to form in the womb but disappear after the baby was born and the radial and ulna arteries had grown.
Now, one in three people keep their median arteries for their whole lives, which poses no health risk and increases blood supply to the hand.
Author Professor Maciej Henneberg said: “This is ‘micro evolution’ in modern humans.
“The median artery is a perfect example of how we are still evolving because people born more recently have a higher prevalence of this artery when compared to humans from previous generations.”
The research was carried out by tracking the rate of retainment of different parts of the body through the generations and dissecting preserved corpses of people born throughout the 20th century.

The contact-tracing app for England and Wales has only sent one alert about a coronavirus outbreak in a venue since it was launched two weeks ago, despite being used for millions of check-ins, Sky News has learned.
Department of Health officials said that the system was still in its infancy and was not expected to be used frequently.

But with mass closures of pubs and bars expected in parts of the country, the absence of targeted venue alerts has raised questions about the government’s strategy.
Shadow digital minister Chi Onwurah said: “On the one hand, at a government briefing on local data I’m told pubs are the primary location for common COVID exposure, on the other that the contact-tracing app has only sent out one alert about an outbreak in a venue.
“There is a plain contradiction there and ministers need to get a grip.”

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The app has now been downloaded 16 million times, thanks in part to its QR code scanner, a feature built into the app in addition to the contact-tracing system, which tells users whether or not they’ve been near someone who has tested positive for coronavirus.

The QR code scanner allows people to check in to venues such as pubs and restaurants. If there is an outbreak in a venue, then NHS Test and Trace can send an alert to anyone who has visited.

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Ministers hailed the system as a crucial step forward and passed a new law making it illegal for bars, restaurants and pubs not to display an official NHS QR code.
Three days after the app’s launch on Thursday 24 September, the Department for Health and Social Care boasted that more than 480,000 businesses had downloaded QR code posters.
That Saturday, Test and Trace recorded more than 1.5 million venue check-ins in a single day.
But a data file in the code for the app, uncovered by Sky News, shows that only four alerts have been sent out about outbreaks in venues, three of which expired before the app was launched nationwide.

How you download the new contact-tracing app

The code for the app also revealed the text of the alert that will be sent out in the event of an outbreak in a venue, exposing the difficulties involved in using a system built to protect privacy for public health communication.
Data about check-ins is stored locally on phones, so when the app sends an alert about an outbreak it cannot name the venue where the outbreak has taken place. Instead, it says: “We are letting you know that you may have been exposed to coronavirus when you were out.”
Paul Hunter, professor of health protection at the University of East Anglia, said this lack of detail meant venue alerts “almost certainly can’t be relied on to be an important and effective way of controlling the epidemic.”
The privacy-protecting design of the app also means that, in contrast to other QR-based or manual check-in systems, public health officials cannot look at the data to see who has checked in at a venue using the app, a fact Professor Hunter said made him question whether the app was an obstacle to effective virus control.
“If it’s all done through the app and Public Health England and the local public health teams don’t know anything about it, is it making the outbreak worse?” he said. “It could be acting to hide clusters and outbreaks from local public health teams.
“If that is happening then that is a really serious problem and will undoubtedly make it more difficult to control the epidemic.”

Your questions answered on new contact-tracing app

Senior Test and Trace officials defended the system, saying that it made checking in easier and more accurate, while also encouraging wider adoption of the app. They pointed to a similar check-in app in New Zealand which they said had been very successful.
Yet although the check-in system works in both England and Wales, the Welsh government has not made it compulsory for businesses to display NHS QR code posters and has continued to ask pubs and restaurants to record details manually or through their own QR check-in systems, which do not have the same privacy-protecting constraints on data collection.
A Welsh government official said they wanted to avoid disrupting the country’s existing contact-tracing effort.
A spokesperson told Sky News: “Our contact-tracing system, which is a publicly-run service and locally delivered, is working very well, with a very high contact and trace rate.”
Asked about the difference between the Welsh and English systems, a senior Test and Trace official said it was up to each country to decide, pointing out that manual check-in logs tended to be filled with Mickey Mouses and Donald Ducks.

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Is long-awaited test and trace app up to job?

In order to send an alert, public health officials add the code for that venue to a data file, which is automatically sent to every contact-tracing app several times a day. The app then checks to see if the codes on the file match any of the places where the user has checked in.
Rather than giving specific advice, the alert tells people to watch out for symptoms, a strategy DHSC officials described as “warn and inform”.
After saying: “We are letting you know that you may have been exposed to coronavirus,” the alert continues: “Although there is only a small risk that you have been infected during your visit, please continue to follow the latest advice on social distancing.” It then asks people to “use the symptom checker on the app and book a free test if advised to do so”.

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Health officials described the QR check-in system as an additional feature for the app which would only be used if a venue was linked to an outbreak, something they did not expect to happen frequently.
Asked about the absence of venue alerts in the fortnight since the app launched, a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “The NHS Covid-App is an important public health tool, downloaded more than 16 million times, which is helping to stop the spread of this virus.”Alongside the app’s contact tracing features, the QR code check-in system performs a number of important functions, not least providing a digital diary for users to prompt them as to who they have been with should they test positive.”If Heath Protection Teams believe a venue is linked to an outbreak they may send a ‘warn and inform’ message to app users who attended the venue at a similar time based on when they checked-in.”
A Deloitte spokesperson said: “Deloitte is immensely proud to have been able to step up and answer the government’s call to British businesses to support the national testing programme when the pandemic first emerged. At short notice we have provided the capacity, skills and expertise at the scale needed to support this critically important programme.
“Forty public and private sector companies are now supporting the programme, with tens of thousands of people across 500 sites and processing millions of tests per week. The UK is now testing more per capita than most major countries in Western Europe.
“Our digital technology, procurement, supply chains, logistics, real estate and project management teams have worked tirelessly since March. We look forward to continuing our support, advising on ways that new and innovative testing programmes can be introduced and developed.”

A Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton called Stan has sold for £24.5m at auction, breaking an all-time record.
Named after Stan Sacrison, the amateur palaeontologist who discovered it in South Dakota in 1987, Stan is 40ft long and 13ft high.

It sold for $31.8m (£24.5m) at Christie’s auction house in New York on Tuesday, making it the most expensive dinosaur fossil ever to be sold.
The anonymous buyer spared no expense to get their offer accepted over the phone – after 20 minutes of bidding.
Stan’s pre-sale estimate price was only $8m (£6m).

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Image: The dinosaur is believed to be 67 million years old and is nicknamed Stan
The 67-million-year-old structure is made up of 188 bones and peaked scientists’ interest after they spotted two fused vertebrae in the neck – which implies the dinosaur survived a broken neck during its lifetime.

Its teeth are over 11 inches long

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The impressive skeleton has been studied by experts at the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in Hill City, South Dakota for the past 20 years.
The last complete T-Rex skeleton to be sold at auction was in 1992.
It was bought by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago for $8.36m (£6.45m) and was nicknamed Sue.

More than 600 reports of romance scams per month were made to Action Fraud during June, July and August, with criminals exploiting victims’ desire for human contact during the lockdown.
Police forces and other organisations are running a campaign throughout October to raise awareness of romance fraud, following a 26% increase in reports to Action Fraud in the past year.

The average victim of romance fraud loses just over £10,000.
Romance fraud, or dating fraud, occurs when people think they have met the perfect partner online but their “date” is using a fake profile to form a relationship.
They gain the victim’s trust over weeks or months but the criminal’s end goal is to get the victim’s money or personal information.

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Diana Fawcett, chief executive of charity Victim Support, said: “Lockdown restrictions meant people could not meet in person for a number of months, which led to many seeking to form new connections online.

“Whilst using the internet can be a great way to meet people and form relationships, there’s also a great risk of being lured into a romance scam as fraudsters know how to take advantage of people’s desire for human contact.

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“Unfortunately, we’ve seen that circumstances caused by coronavirus were in fact used by fraudsters as a ‘hook’ to extort money. For example, some have invented lies about needing medical treatment, or urgent travel expenses to leave a country, or funds to keep afloat after a bogus job loss caused by the pandemic.”
Since August 2019, the average number of reports made per month to Action Fraud about romance scams has been 400.
Losses reported by victims between August 2019 and August 2020 totalled £66,335,239.
City of London Police said popular platforms where victims reported first interacting with criminals committing romance fraud were Facebook, Plenty of Fish, Instagram, Tinder and Match.com.
As part of the campaign, the Match Group, which owns OK Cupid, Plenty of Fish, Tinder and Match.com, is running romance fraud protection adverts throughout October on these platforms.
Many online platforms have a reporting tool which people can use if they suspect someone is a scammer. Reporting their user profile means it can be blocked, which also helps to protect others.
Justine Sacco, chief communications officer at Match Group, said: “We want all of the members of our community to feel safe on our apps and feel equipped to protect themselves from romance scams.”
City of London Police is also working with money transfer companies to help block transfers suspected of being linked to romance scams.