Current status: Answered by Keith Brown on 25 March 2022
To ask the Scottish Government how many people have reported incidents of online scams to Police Scotland in each year since 1999.
The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of reported incidents of online scams, though estimates are available on the volume of police recorded fraud that was cyber-enabled over 2018-19 to 2020-21 (see the following table). Further detail is available in Table A12 of the 2020-21 recorded crime National Statistics .
As with other types of crime, not all cases of fraud are reported to the police, and cyber-enabled fraud can potentially encompass a wide range of incident types.
At least part of the increase in 2020-21 may be due to the significant impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and government instructions to limit social contact. For example, in their ‘ Crime in England and Wales : year ending March 2021’ release, the Office for National Statistics noted that an increase in fraud and computer misuse offences could reflect perpetrators taking advantage of behavioural changes during the pandemic, such as increased online shopping.
Furthermore, a procedural change was made to the recording of international crime in 2020-21, whereby cases carried out by a perpetrator who was likely to be outside the UK are now included. This change resulted in an estimated 900 additional crimes of cyber-enabled fraud being recorded in the latest year. Estimates for 2021-22 will be published later in the year as part of the 2021-22 recorded crime National Statistics.
Police recorded fraud in Scotland that was estimated to be cyber-enabled.
Year | Volume |
2018-19 | 2,690 |
2019-20 | 3,450 |
2020-21 | 8,580 |
Source: Police Recorded Crime in Scotland National Statistics