Reading Time: 1.6 mins

April 18, 2023

UK residents lost £177.6m to impersonation scams in 2022

  • Last year £177.6 million was lost to impersonation scams last year.
  • UK Finance have highlighted the dangers of fraud and stated that 45,367 cases of this specific type of fraud were carried out in 2022.
  • An impersonation scam is when a criminal contacts their victim pretending to be a trusted organisation or a friend or family member.
  • These scams also appear high in urgency and request money or personal or financial information.
  • The Take Five Campaign encourages people to stop and think before falling victim to these crimes.
  • For more advice check out our article Energy Bills Scam.
  • For more on this story please visit the Independent’s website.

Encrypted messaging services sign open letter against Online Safety Bill

  • Encrypted messaging services such as WhatsApp, Element and Signal have signed an open letter opposing the Online Safety Bill.
  • The platforms argue that the Bill could challenge end-to-end encryption which is regarded as the highest level of privacy technology companies provide.
  • The Bill has been designed to help prevent online trolling and illegal forms of pornography by giving platforms more responsibility.
  • Check out our guide to the Online Safety Bill.
  • For more on this story, please visit the Independent’s website.

UK needs time to recruit more maths teachers

  • Rishi Sunak has said that the UK needs more time to recruit maths teachers.
  • He also has said that his compulsory maths plans would not involve students being required to study maths at A-level.
  • Speaking at the London Screen Academy, he said it was his personal passion to change the “anti-maths mindset” which make it acceptable to joke about having poor numeracy skills.
  • He raised problems in the current levels of maths teaching including a shortage of maths teachers and a third of young people being unable to pass maths GCSE.
  • For more, go to the Guardian’s website.