Often do we come accross news about someone or the other fiddling with technology or machines to commit a fraud or to steal people of their hard earned income. We do hear stories about someone trying to break into the ATMs or people using fake credit cards/debit cards.

Finaly, the UK government has taken a step towards plugging a legal loophole that could possible allow the intruders/criminals to get away with these technological and innovative frauds. In a much awaited move, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith has added a clause to the Fraud Bill in United Kingdom to make deceiving a computer a criminal offence.

‘We do not want law enforcers to face unreasonable technical choices in making charges and we consider the Bill should make it clear that a false representation should be an offence whether made to a machine or person,’ said Lord Goldsmith. ‘It will make a lot of computer related frauds easier to challenge,’ he said. ‘It is not that people have been getting away with crimes, but the means of legally challenging them have been convoluted.’

Many bankers like Llyods TSB welcomed this decision of the Attorney saying it could make it easy to tackle fraud. This legal change was much awaited and long due according to Mr Peter Sommer, Senior Research fellow at London School of Economics.

According to me, any move which is designed to tighten the legal framework is always welcome. Technology has grown by leaps and bounds and has made a place in the daily life of people so much and it has become an unnecessary evil and we cannot avoid using it. And with the growth in technology, the means of decieving the people have also grown and become much more innovative. Hence we have to deal more effetively with the online and tecnological crime.

Introduction of such changes in the law can act as a detterent for the criminals.If the bill passes into Law it shall help prosecutors deal more effectively with internet crimes, such as phishing. Further, i hope that with introduction of such a law in UK, soon other countries shall follow the suite and should benefit people at large.

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