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Following is a written reply by the Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Mr Stephen Lam, (in the absence of Secretary for Security) to a question on Prevent payment card fraud cases by the Hon Lau Kong-wah in the Legislative Council today (November 14):
Question:
Regarding crimes involving automatic teller machine ("ATM") cards and credit cards, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the number of prosecutions instituted in the past two years, in relation to the use of fake ATM cards or credit cards, together with a breakdown, by nationality, of the number of the defendants;
(b) whether it is aware of the places from which the fake ATM cards and credit cards originated, and whether the authorities have liaised with law enforcement agencies in other jurisdictions in combating these crimes;
(c) whether the authorities have detected any cases of fake ATM cards or credit cards forged by lawless elements in Hong Kong over the past three years; and
(d) of the number of fraud cases in the past three years involving the use of information stolen from ATM cards and credit cards and the amount of money involved and, among such cases, the number of those involving credit card transactions on the Internet and the detection rate for the crimes of that nature, as well as whether guidelines will be provided to advise the public on how to reduce the risk of their credit card information being stolen and used for transactions on the Internet?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) The Administration does not specifically keep statistics regarding the number of prosecution cases on the use of counterfeit payment cards (including credit cards, debit cards and ATM cards). Statistics for such cases are usually kept by reference to the offences involved (such as possessing or using a false instrument, or fraud).
(b) The Police's experience is that most of the counterfeit payment cards used in the relevant cases in Hong Kong were made outside Hong Kong. Counterfeiting payment cards is a transnational crime. The Police will continue to combat crimes involving counterfeit payment cards by adopting an intelligence-led strategy and stepping up liaison, close cooperation and intelligence exchange with the banking industry and the law enforcement agencies in the Mainland, Macao and overseas jurisdictions.
(c) In the past three years, Police detected three cases in which the ATM cards or credit cards were counterfeited in Hong Kong, and arrested the persons involved.
(d) In the past three years, the number of reported cases and the reported amount of losses for payment card fraud cases (i.e. cases related to payment cards that are reportedly lost or stolen, and the payment cards involved are not counterfeit) are as follows:
Year 2004 2005 2006 2007
(Jan - Jun)
------- ------ ------ ------ ------------
Number of 1043 801 644 330
reported
cases
Reported 21.65 17.04 20.77 7.02
amount
of losses
(million
Hong Kong
dollars)
Most of the payment card fraud cases were related to credit cards. Of these cases, the number of cases involving the use of credit cards in transactions on the Internet is as follows:
Year 2004 2005 2006 2007
(Jan - Jun)
------ ------ ------ ------ ------------
Number of 65 37 52 43
cases
The Police have not kept separate statistics on the detection rates of such cases.
To effectively prevent such crimes, the Police have been in close liaison and cooperation with the industry, encouraging the industry to adopt more stringent security features and systems for payment cards and credit cards so as to provide better safeguards for transactions on the Internet. Moreover, the Police frequently remind citizens to keep a close watch on their personal belongings, and to ensure that their passwords would not be seen by others during withdrawal at ATMs or shopping. In addition, the Police often remind the public through various channels (such as the "Police Report" programme) not to readily reveal the password of their payment cards to others, and to stay vigilant about dubious websites and report such websites, if found, to the banks and the Police as soon as possible. The Police have also set up a hotline (2860 5012) for public enquiries about matters on commercial and computer crimes, including those relating to credit card transactions on the Internet.
Ends/Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Issued at HKT 17:40
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