Tag Archives: Home Office

Crime, Fraud, Mobile Phones, Police, Recipero

Jack Wraith MBE appointed as Recipero’s UK Government & Regulatory Affairs Adviser

Jack Wraith MBEWe are pleased to welcome Jack Wraith MBE to Recipero as Government and Regulatory Affairs Adviser. As people familiar with the telecoms industry will know, Jack has extensive experience in the area of telecommunications fraud and risk and has held several lead roles most recently as CEO of TUFF (the Telecommunications United Kingdom Fraud Forum).

Jack has also served as Chair of The Mobile Industry Crime Action Forum (MICAF), and former Executive Secretary to the Communications Crime Strategy Group (CCSG). In tandem with these roles Jack has also acted as Chairman to a number of fraud and crime related committees within the UK, including Joint Chairmanship of the ACPO Telecommunications Data Communications Group.

Jack’s role at Recipero is to lead liaison with Government, regulators, law enforcement and mobile operators to ensure a coordinated and effective approach to mobile device fraud and criminality is adopted and maintained.

Mark Harman, CEO Recipero said:

Our on-going liaison with law enforcement and Government continues to be a fundamental part of our business in the UK, US, and other jurisdictions in which we operate.

Jack’s experience and his joining us in this important role will be integral to those on-going partnerships and reinforces Recipero’s commitment to deliver the best fraud and crime reduction solutions to the industry.

Links:

Telecommunications United Kingdom Fraud Forum (TUFF)

The Mobile Industry Crime Action Forum (MICAF)

CheckMEND, ClaimsCheck, Immobilise, ImmobiTag, NMPR, Police, Recipero, Report My Loss

Recipero recieves the prestigeous Secured by Design award

Secured by DesignRecipero is pleased to announce that it recently received the highly regarded Secured by Design (SBD) Award for its services and products, including the Immobilise National Property Register service & products, plus linked services including the Police NMPR service, CheckMEND and Report My Loss, all of which are aimed a helping identify, investigate and deter crime and associated criminality.

The Secured by Design Award is the culmination of many months of work that also saw Recipero become both ISO9001 (Quality Management) and ISO27001 (Information Security Management) certified.

Secured by Design is the initiative from the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) that aims to reduce crime and calls for the use of services or installation of security solutions that meet police-approved standards. Businesses whose services and/or products have been certified by an accredited testing body to the specified standards, can apply for SBD membership and licence to utilise the scheme’s logo.

The SBD logo is the only symbol that guarantees national Police approval of a product or service, providing customers with reassurance that the solution provides a proven level of resistance to criminal attack.

Utilising SBD-accredited services and security products is a quick and simple way to ensure compliance with new guidelines. Consumers and specifiers are also recognising that SBD provides an easy route to help identify which of the many technical standards indicates a service or product is an effective crime prevention measure.

Neil Stewart, Recipero’s Commercial Director said:

Gaining SBD approval for our services is a significant achievement, and demonstrates Recipero’s commitment to data security and product quality. It also serves to provide Recipero’s valued customers with reassurance that we continue to meet the high standards we have reputation for delivering.

For more information please see:
Secured by Design: http://www.securedbydesign.com

Details of ISO 9001:
http://www.british-assessment.co.uk/services/iso-certification/iso-9001-certification/

Details of ISO 27001:
http://www.british-assessment.co.uk/services/iso-certification/iso-27001-certification/

ACPO: http://www.acpo.police.uk/

CheckMEND, CheckMEND USA, Crime, Immobilise, Immobilize, Lost Property, Mobile Phones, NMPR, Police, Recipero, Report My Loss

CheckMEND officially adopted by phone recycling industry and Home Office code of practice

Today July 23rd it was officially agreed that CheckMEND would be the first approved due diligence service to be used and officially endorsed under a new Home Office/recycling industry code of practice.

The signing of the new code of practice by over 90% of the mobile phone recycling industry means that for the first time there are agreed guidelines for the checking of handsets offered for sale to the industry and this includes using the CheckMEND service to check the National Mobile Phone/Property Register.

Adrian Portlock CEO of Recipero the operator of CheckMEND said:

This is a major step forward for the industry and CheckMEND and we are really pleased the industry has recognised their responsibilities in checking products they are buying, this model needs to be extended to all handlers of used goods and retailers taking trade ins and we will be pushing for this to be the case, but this is an excellent start.

For more information please see the following sites:

CheckMEND, Crime, Immobilise, Mobile Phones, NMPR, Police, Recipero, Report My Loss

Home Office unveils technologies to help protect Britain’s 75m mobile phone users from crime

stolenmobilephonesThree new design innovations to tackle mobile phone crime, including a device that locks a phone and alerts the owner if it is taken away from them, have been unveiled today. The prototypes were developed by teams of designers and technology experts as part of the Mobile Phone Security Challenge, an initiative from the Home Office Design and Technology Alliance and the Design Council, with support and funding from the Technology Strategy Board.

Although the adoption of the designs by the industry is by no means guaranteed, very few people disagree that more needs to be done to address crime relating to mobile phones and portable devices. Although overall crime has dropped since 1997, according to research performed by the University of Leicester, the type of crimes being committed has changed. Their findings suggest that a decade ago burglary was attractive to criminals as they would find households containing DVD players, videos etc that were easy to sell on. These days DVD players cost as little as £20 so have hardly any resale value.

As the phones and media devices we carry around with us have become more powerful, their values have increased and along with it their attractiveness to criminals.

Commenting on the research findings criminology lecturer James Treadwell said:

While we might have seen a decline in some types of crime, we have seen a rise in other forms of criminal activity, particularly young people who seem to be mugging one another

DVD players for example, got cheaper, certain consumer items became smaller and were very, very expensive and sought after, and so the latest mobile phone, or the latest iPod, which people carry about them, have become targets for robbers.

Mobile phone crime will never be an easy issue to address especially as devices become enabled for mobile payments, but new designs and initiatives like the Immobilise National Property Register / NMPR will continue to combat crime.

Links:

Immobilise National Property Register
Home Office: New technologies unveiled to help protect Britain’s 75m mobile phone users from crime
BBC News: Crime targets affected by drop in goods prices

Crime, Immobilise, Mobile Phones, NMPR, Police

£250K New Home Office funding to tackle mobile phone crime

The Home Office has recently announced that £250,000 of funding has been made available to help police more swiftly identify stolen mobile phones.

The scheme will see the Police National Computer (PNC) linked to the National Mobile Phone Register (NMPR) enabling frontline officers to quickly and easily check if a phone has been registered as stolen from its rightful owner.

Home Office Minister, Alan Campbell said:
By working closely with the mobile phone industry we have already put in place measures to make it harder for thieves to profit from mobile phone theft – around 90% of handsets reported stolen are now blocked within 24 hours of reporting reducing their value and the incentive for thieves.

Linking the National Mobile Phone Register to the Police National Computer will also provide enormous benefits to the fight against mobile phone crime. Currently an average of 25% of searches result in the police obtaining vital information that could result in property being retrieved and cases being solved. I believe that putting this invaluable tool at frontline officer’s fingertips will see that number rise further.

The NMPR (National Mobile Property Register) is the national police database of registered property ownership and stolen property records. It is linked to voluntary databases – such as Immobilise.com, where people can enter their phone’s details. So if the phone is lost or stolen police can identify it and return it to the rightful owner.

To read the offical Home Office press release go to: Home Office Press Release

To visit the National Mobile Phone Register (NMPR) go to: NMPR

To visit the NMPCU (National Mobile Phone Crime Unit) go to: NMPCU

CheckMEND, CheckMEND USA, Crime, Police

The Serial Entrepreneur

4 Comments

For those of you who have heard about it, but wondered what CheckMEND is and how it came about I thought I would give you the low down on why and how it all began.

Me, founder of CheckMEND.com

Lost my phone!

In 2000 I lost my phone on the London Underground and went to the lost property office to try to find it. However, I was then faced with the task of providing a serial number or what we also know as the IMEI number. But in 2000 no one had really heard of what an IMEI number was let alone know their own!

Anyway after eventually finding my IMEI number and recovering my phone, I realised that all modern consumer electronic products have a unique serial number and that without them there was little way of distinguishing one item from another. Thus, I formed the idea that there was a need in the market for a pre-loss or theft registration service containing these serial numbers.

Previous career path

My career has always involved providing services to the consumer, back in 2000, at the age of 40; I sold my chain of restaurants, bars and leisure facilities, with the aim of taking early retirement and relaxing after a very full working life… until the idea for CheckMEND hit me.

I decided to start up a company called Recipero (latin meaning to retain or recover), with a view to building a company that provided a range of products and services based on the accumulation, organisation and analysis of information relating to personal property ownership, associated criminality, fraud and illegal trading.

The simple pre-loss registration database:

The starting point was with a simple pre-loss registration database, but it quickly became apparent that there was value in the analysis of the data and potential to provide HPI-type data for consumer electronics. This was reinforced at the time with the explosion of online auction sites and the willingness of people to buy and sell second-hand goods online. All at the same time as the huge increase in the theft of mobile phones and other mobile devices such as laptops, ipods and the like.
The next three years was spent populating the MEND data warehouse and building partnerships across the mobile industry, with the likes of Carphone Warehouse and mobile phone networks. The police forces were also a vital partner for me.
Eventually, the system grew and now contains billions of pieces of discrete information and is accessed over a million times a month by the mobile phone industry, all UK Police forces, major insurers, the second hand trade, recyclers and the public.
CheckMEND.com was launched in 2006 and the CheckMEND database is now used extensively by second hand trade and the public the most common use of CheckMEND by the general public is for when they are buying or selling items from online auction sites like ebay.

Taking it international:

I can now safely say the company is well established and we are starting to focus on business outside the UK. 2008 will see two new launches for CheckMEND.com. One in the US, which the Recipero and CheckMEND teams are extremely excited about, with the U.S. being the largest market for consumer electronics. Not only that, we have already begun the process of launching in Asia too.

Obviously the road to where we are today didn’t all run as smoothly as suggested above, many a challenge was faced and problem overcome, but this is the CheckMEND story… so far…

Have a look at the youtube video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zcm9VFNvuQ