Specialist Printing Equipment and Materials (Offences) Act 2015

[Tools]

Following agreement by both Houses on the text of the Bill, it received Royal Assent on 26 March. The Bill is now an Act of Parliament (law) as of today. This is a positive step towards the prevention of fraud creating the "Offence of supplying specialist printing equipment knowing it will be used for criminal purposes"

In this Act, “specialist printing equipment” means any equipment which is designed or adapted for, or is otherwise capable of being used for, the making of relevant documents (including any material or article that is used in the making of such documents).

A “relevant document” is anything that is or purports to be—

(a)an identity document;

(b)a travel document;

(c)an entry document;

(d)a document used for verifying the holder’s age or national insurance number;

(e)a currency note or protected coin, as defined by section 27(1) of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act; 1981

(f)a debit or credit card;

(g)any other instrument to which section 5 of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 applies (money orders, etc).
An Act to make provision for an offence in respect of supplies of specialist printing equipment and related materials; and for connected purposes.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/...acted/data.htm

[Tools]

Re: Specialist Printing Equipment and Materials (Offences) Act 2015

Via http://www.davidamess.co.uk/news/sou...me-becomes-law

The Specialist Printing Equipment and Materials (Offences) Bill, introduced to Parliament by Sir David Amess, received Royal Assent on Thursday, 26 March 2015.
The new Act of Parliament is of huge importance, as available figures for identity crime are very worrying. Figures published by the National Fraud Authority show that almost a third of all UK adults have fallen victim of such crime at some point.
The new Act of Parliament creates a new offence of knowingly providing specialist printing equipment to individuals or groups that can use the equipment for criminal purposes. The new legislation is supported by Metropolitan Police who, in partnership with the printing industry, designed Project Genesius to reduce access of criminals to the equipment and supplies they require to produce false documents.
Mr Amess commented: “I am delighted that the Bill passed through both Houses of Parliament so smoothly and has now become an Act of Parliament. Bill has got support from all parties, as the problem in question – identity crime – affects people all across the country.
“In my own constituency of Southend West, the police recently detected as many as 128 false identity documents on the computer hard drives seized from false document factories. By cutting off equipment supplies from criminals, this new legislation will help the Police in the wonderful work they are doing in trying to prevent criminals from producing numerous false documents including passports, driving licences, birth certificates, immigration documents, EU identity cards, national insurance numbers and many others.”