´Blaggers´ To Face Prison In Future?

Earlier this month, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) successfully prosecuted a married couple for unlawfully obtaining and selling personal information, fining them £7,500 and ordering them to pay £7,388 towards prosecution costs. The couple used 'blagging' to obtain personal information about individuals from banks, telecommunication companies and other organisations to sell the information for profit.

'Blaggers' attempt to get personal information by pretending to be someone they are not. They use pieces of information they gather from different sources to obtain even more personal information on an individual. The result is that the 'blaggers' obtain enough personal information illegally to be able to sell it to parties seeking such information, such as bail agents, private detectives and, possibly, criminal entities.