City of York Council's 'disguised business sales' project has been recognised as one of the most innovative uses of technology at the Technology Industry Awards 2003.

The council's trading standards team, working with i-document systems, has developed a ground breaking fraud detection system. The technology scans and cross matches telephone numbers in newspaper adverts, enabling officers to spot fraudulent traders.

This is the second award the initiative has won. The team also received the prestigious Knowledge Management Project Award at the Information Management Awards 2002. The 'Image-Gen' system has been very successful in identifying numerous traders posing as private individuals in the region. Without technology it would be impossible to carry out searches on this scale.

Elizabeth Levett, trading standards manager, City of York Council, said: "The Image-Gen system has revolutionised the way in which we carry out this type of work. In the past officers would have had to cross match the telephone numbers by hand. This was very labour intensive and time consuming. The award recognises the council's innovative approach to solving this problem and the success of the project."