By John Leyden for The
Register. This story has been reproduced with
permission.
But instead of creating a Policing Central E-Crime Unit (PCEU),
as proposed by ACPO (the Association of Chief Police Officers) and
the Metropolitan Police, government minsters want to establish the
unit as a law enforcement arm of the National Fraud Reporting
Centre (NFRC).
Since the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) was amalgamated
with the Serious and Organised Crime Agency two years ago,
commercial victims of cybercrime have been obliged to report
problems to their local police forces, a situation that often
proves unworkable. The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) is
focused on high-level trans-national crime and only takes reports
of cybercrime indirectly.
Policies introduced in April 2006 mean the public is advised to
report incidents of credit card or auction fraud to the banks or
auction houses instead of the police. This too is working out badly
and there's a widespread belief that cybercrimes more often than
not go unreported - unlike the US, where the Internet Crime
Complaint Center (IC3) acts as a clearing house.
Without a grip on the scope of the e-crime problem resource
allocation decisions take place in the absence of solid facts.
Parliamentary under secretary of state Vernon Coaker told a House
of Lords science and technology committee on Tuesday that the Home
Office acknowledged there was a gap in e-crime reporting and
cybercrime investigation that needs to be bridged.
"Within reason, the Home Office will look to fund a law
enforcement capability alongside the NRFC, but we haven't got a
budget for this work yet," the minster said.
"We'd like to see all reports of fraud sent to the NFRC... which
would become a one-stop shop for the reporting of fraud. We don't
want a multiplicity of centres. We want to bring it together,"
Coaker told the committee.
Under these revised plans all types of cybercrime - including
those that didn't directly involve financial fraud - would be
handled by the NFRC. Its investigative arm would tackle
enforcement. NFRC would receive a budget of around £15m.
"Different pieces of law enforcement do different things but
there is a gap, without a shadow of a doubt. We need NFRC but then
alongside that a law enforcement capability. Don't want NFRC to set
up a law enforcement arm which didn't relate to other bodies even
though in the first few weeks it would gain plaudits with people
saying the government is finally funding an e-crime unit," Coaker
said.
"The key question to work out what you do at national, regional
and local level. National strategic law enforcement needs to act as
a catalyst for change," he added.
The approach is very different to previous plans from the
police.
Speaking at the Infosec conference last month the Metropolitan
Police's head of e-crime, Detective Supt Charlie McMurdie, said a
business plan to create a 50-strong Policing Central E-Crime Unit
had been submitted and she hoped for an answer within "two to three
week"s. The unit would cost about £5m in total. The Home Office was
asked to approve £1.3m in start-up funding.
Coaker is to meet representatives from the City of London
Police, SOCA's e-crime unit, the Met's Hi-tech Crime Unit, and the
Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre - on 4 June for
talks about how such a unit would sit alongside their
responsibilities.
The proceedings of Tuesday's House of Lords science and
technology committee can be found
here. Coaker's testimony (of around 40 minutes) can be found
after the 37-minute mark.
© The
Register 2008
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