APP app?


Lobby group UK Finance released its annual report today, with a breakdown of how our annual fraud bill of £1.2 billion breaks down.

Popular as ever is the Authorised Push Payment, where people are convinced to hand over banking details in order to be cleaned out.

As often as not, this is done by a 'relative' on the end of the phone line who convinces you to transfer cash urgently into their account.

And this is how sophisticated this has become with the assistance of AI...

... which is able to turn anything you say into someone else saying it, so long as you've sampled their voice.

Typically your son, for instance, will call to say that he's in a financial fix (although this may also be a UK Member of Parliament) and needs cash desperately.

Naturally you transfer the cash, given the distress in a voice that you do recognise.

Except it's not really theirs.

Block-locks provide the ideal means by which you can ask someone to prove, online, that they are actually related to you.

"Can you pick out your Aunty Lilian please from the fifteen photos you're looking at?"

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