Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to combat scammers using Ministry of Justice telephone numbers.

The HM Revenue & Customs telephone scam has been a serious concern for UK citizens, with many individuals being defrauded of significant sums of money. The scam involves faking caller line identification to make it appear as if the scammers are phoning from a valid HM Courts & Tribunal Service number. In October 2022, this number was listed as "Do Not Originate" (DNO) via OFCOM, which has resulted in a significant drop in fraudulent call volumes from 30-40 per day to negligible numbers. This DNO list is shared amongst telecommunication companies (telco) globally, preventing any telco from permitting this number to be faked as a Caller-ID.

The National Cyber Security Centre recommends using a tool called Domain Message Authentication Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) to prevent scammers from using fake addresses when sending text messages. However, fraudsters can still find ways to send fake messages even with DMARC in place. To solve this problem, a registry called SMS SenderID Protection is being used to pre-approve sender addresses. This can help make sure that text messages are only delivered if they come from an approved sender.