Out-Law News 1 min. read

Regional e-crime squads to be created to combat cybercrime


Police forces across the UK plan to pool their e-crime specialists to create regional cybercrime squads. The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) said that that e-crime policing needed a "more consistent" approach.

Since the disbanding of the National High Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) in 2006 there has been no national policing on high tech crime issues on the same scale.

Last October the Police Central E-Crime Unit (PCeU) was set up in London's Metropolitan Police force but attracted criticism over a perceived lack of resources. Critics doubted whether it would be able to provide national policing on a £7 million budget.

Now ACPO's lead officer on e-crime, Janet Williams, has said that nationally-coordinated action boosting regional expertise is essential to fight the growing problem of e-crime.

She said that ACPO was "actively pursuing" the idea of the "brigading of specialist e-crime resources from forces in each region into collaborative e-crime hubs".

"This follows the model successfully implemented in some other areas of specialist policing, bringing together a critical mass of e-crime specialists within each region to create a centre of excellence in e-crime policing," she said.

ACPO's yet-to-be-finalised strategy on e-crime also reportedly plans to train all police officers in how to deal with cybercrime in an attempt to tackle massive and growing online fraud and other digital crimes.

Williams said that policing in the area is currently not good enough. "This strategy is designed to assist law enforcement in building a response to this very real challenge. We are starting from a low base and there is much to be done," she said.

"This strategy is the first stage in developing a more consistent approach to e-crime across UK police forces, increasing the skills and capacity for law enforcement officers to tackle such criminality and to mainstream e-Crime into everyday policing and law enforcement activities," she said.

In its response to a House of Lords report in 2007 on policing the Home Office admitted that the disbanding of the NHTCU meant that e-crime was not being adequately addressed.

“We know that [computer] crime is not a problem that sits comfortably within local policing structures, and that historically most forces have underinvested in their capacity to respond effectively to it,” it said.

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