Helena Wood is director of public policy for Cifas, the UK’s leading not-for-profit fraud prevention service, which seeks to use the power of data to reduce the harms of economic crime. She was previously head of economic crime UK at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and a National Crime Agency officer prior to that.
How do you start your working day?
With a strong cup of Yorkshire Tea and by scanning my personal communications for the inevitable scam messages and emails to forward on to 7726 or the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) phishing service. I take a visceral pleasure in tackling fraudsters before breakfast.
What has been your career high?
Getting fraud recognised as a threat to our national security in the government’s 2023 Fraud Strategy. For too long the problem has been (wrongly) categorised as a low-harm criminal justice issue – it’s not. It’s undermining our economic security, fuelling organised criminality, and undermining faith in our institutions and the rule of law. Recognising fraud’s wider impact is the first step towards having this prioritised in our national response.
What has been the most challenging moment of your career?
Like many working parents, I face the ongoing challenge around juggling work and family commitments. However, while I won’t claim I “have it all” – culturally and structurally we are not there as a society – I’ve found a way (and a flexible employer in Cifas) to have “most of it”. Despite the challenge, I’m clear that I’m a better employee for being a mother (a decisive multi-tasker, 24 hours a day) and a better mother for being employed.
If you could give your younger self career advice, what would it be?
There are no bad career moves. Even if you are in a job which isn’t a good fit you will take from it a specific skill, a bit of knowledge, a contact or even just personal resilience to build your longer-term career.
Which political figure inspires you?
As someone who studied politics in the late 1990s, the late Labour MP Mo Mowlam was a huge inspiration. She overcame adversity in childhood and instead of sinking, used what she’d learned from that experience to deal with the ultimate, high-stress situation – the Northern Ireland Peace Process. I was lucky enough to meet her briefly when she came to do a talk at my sixth form college in York, which truly inspired me to find a way to contribute to public life.
What UK policy or fund did the Conservative government get right?
Reform of our corporate registry, Companies House. After years of campaigning, the former government finally conceded that allowing anyone, anywhere in the world to form a UK company overnight for £12, without having to prove their identity, isn’t supportive of our prosperity; it merely creates a sinkhole for global illicit finance. The proof will now be in the implementation by the new government, but this is a significant step forward in the fight against economic crime.
And what policy should the new government scrap?
The myopic focus on “bobbies on the beat” as the sole focus of policing strategy across both parties. Visible community policing is of course important, but the crime which British citizens are most likely to be a victim of – fraud – is largely online and upstream. We need to build a policing response which has the cyber and data science skills to respond to the modern-day face of crime.
What upcoming UK policy or law are you most looking forward to?
The lifeblood of fraud is personal data – to hijack our accounts and socially engineer victims. Yet we currently don’t use the rich data we have to identify the networks behind this industrialised crime. The previous government committed to developing an Economic Crime Data Strategy and we are assured the new government will continue this work to properly harness the power of data and tackle economic criminals. Let’s use the tools of their trade against them.
What piece of international government policy could the UK learn from?
If you are looking for innovative fraud responses, those in the Asia-Pacific Region – particularly Singapore, Taiwan, and Australia – are leading the charge on establishing anti-scam centres, where the private sector is co-located with law enforcement to fuse data, in real-time, to tackle fraud. This is simply too big a problem for law enforcement to tackle alone; we’ve got to harness the preventative capabilities of the private sector.
If you could pass one law this year, what would it be?
I’d legislate to ensure Big Tech and social media companies properly contribute to tackling the UK’s fraud problem, a large proportion of which emanates from their platforms. This would include ensuring online safety regulations are robust and an increased financial contribution is made to fund system reforms. Introducing a “polluter pays” principle for fraud may serve to focus minds in the sector on doing more to reduce the role platforms play in helping criminals reach victims.
Content from our partners
Related
