Stephen Cadogen: SFP recipients at risk of being prey to criminals
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine must publish the name of the beneficiary, the municipality of residence, and the amount of each CAP payment.
Work is ongoing within the Department to have such information published by the May 31, 2015 deadline set by the EU. Prior to November, 2010, member states were obliged to publish this information. It was made available on the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s website.
Following a 2010 case taken by German landowners, the European Court of Justice found that the EU legislation on publication was invalid. As a result, information on ‘legal person’ beneficiaries continued, but information on ‘natural person’ beneficiaries was discontinued.
In September, 2012, the European Commission again proposed publication of data on all beneficiaries, as a vital measure to inform citizens how EU funds are spent. In due course, this proposal was approved as EU legislation by agriculture ministers and by the European Parliament.
ICMSA president, John Comer said: “We don’t object to the listing of the payments, but we want some degree of supervision of who is accessing that list, and why they are accessing that list”.
He said there were well-grounded fears that publication of details of direct payments would arouse the interest of the kind of criminals who target rural dwellers and the elderly.
Galway East Fine Gael TD, Paul J Connaughton, has warned that publishing names and addresses of individual farmers who receive CAP money will “make it too easy” for a criminal. “If a gang of criminals wants to target a house or farm, we effectively tell them when the money is going to arrive,” he said.
“Outside of farming, we have very strict and correct data-protection laws. One cannot even make a telephone inquiry about a family member’s health appointment or insurance details, because of data-protection regulations.
“In this case, however, we are publishing detailed information about the farmers and the amounts they have received.
“I cannot understand how that does not run against data-protection law. The European Court of Justice certainly thought it did several years ago,” said Mr Connaughton.
In the UK, farmers have become a major target for cyber-crooks targeting their EU payments.
Cyber-crime experts say the UK’s policy of publishing the full name and municipality, or postal code, of beneficiaries has enabled criminals to target specific individuals, which greatly improves their chances of success.
Fraudsters can easily find out where each individual payment goes, and then track down the farm phone number.
In the last two years, farmers across the UK have become victims of deception crimes, with sums lost ranging from tens to hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The scams used by fraudsters typically involve telephoning and posing as the bank, the police, or another trusted organisation.
The criminal will claim that fraud has been detected on the farmer’s business or personal account, and that immediate action is required to remedy the situation.
The victim is then tricked into handing over key financial information, or into transferring funds to a so-called ‘safe account’ (which is controlled by the criminal).
The Rural Payments Agency, in the UK, responded by reminding farmers that their banks will never request full online banking passwords, nor request a payment over the phone.
When Ireland reverts to publishing farmer-payment information this year, farmers will face a similar threat.
