SIR: I believe that electronic devices such as smart cards and biometrics will fail to combat fraud because these devices will protect only selected transactions and hence would only divert fraud to other sectors. How are we going to protect other transactions?

Fraudsters are one step ahead in electronics and so it will not deter them to find ways to abuse these devices. In other words by using these devices we will be providing fraudsters with other options to abuse us.

These devices will probably deter average fraudsters but will open doors wide for smart fraudsters and organised fraud because in the event of crime we will have no conclusive evidence to identify true abusers. Why wait for the fraudsters to prove to us that these devices will make the problems worse.

A true anti-fraud device will deter fraudsters and

will expose those not deterred so that we could prosecute them. None of these electronic devices meets these conditions and so are bound to fail to deter fraudsters.

Y K Raja

Fletcher Street, Bolton?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.