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.
Student EMA to increase after 20 years
- The Welsh Government has announced sixth form and college students from low-income households will receive a £10 grant increase.
- Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) is designed to help students with travel and food costs and around 16,000 young people in Wales currently receive the payment.
- It has been frozen at £30 for nearly 20 years.
- A new higher payment will begin from the start of the summer term.
- Further education students are eligible if their household income is £20,817 for households with one young person, or £23,077 for households with more than one young person.
- For the full story, go to the BBC’s website.
