The Government has announced four new projects worth £3m linking
universities and commercial firms in the fight against high-tech
fraud. Its aim is to boost confidence in e-commerce security.
Four projects at Umist, Paisley, York and Manchester universities
will look into how to combat mobile phone fraud; tackle benefit
fraud; develop software to improve e-trading processes; and address
consumer and industry barriers to e-commerce.
Making the announcement, e-commerce minister Douglas Alexander
said, "The UK is a world leader in the development of cutting-edge
technology.
"These projects will provide tools for business to combat fraud and
increase confidence in e-business. The benefits they deliver will
help to make the UK the best place to do e-business.
"Consumer confidence is key in developing a thriving market trading
online. Later this month we will provide a further boost with our
campaign to raise consumer awareness on how to shop safely
online."
Government invests in security
The four new research
projects are:
- Dynamic fraud detection and analysis tools (Detector) -
£460,000 to develop software that will detect mobile phone call
behaviour patterns and provide visual analysis of information. It
will help to identify fraud in mobile and electronic commerce.
Project partners are Memex Technology, NTL Group, and the
University of Paisley
- Fraud detection with AURA (Fedaura) - £1.3m to develop existing
benefit fraud detection systems, new methods of high performance
pattern recognition software for use by the Department for Work and
Pensions. Project partners are Cybula, Sun Microsystems, Sema UK,
EDS, University of York, and the Benefits Agency
- Fair integrated data exchange services (Fides) - £693,000 to
research designing and implementing secure e-procurement
information exchange systems over the Internet to prevent fraud.
Project partners are PrismTech, Merrill Lynch, and University of
Manchester
- Human issues in security and privacy for e-commerce (Hispec) -
£600,000 to research the development of the "rules of trust" for
e-commerce consumers and retailers, and develop software to meet
the needs of next generation "privacy enhancing" technologies. This
will particularly address the problems faced by small and
medium-sized enterprizes. Project partners are Co-operative Bank,
Homes for Change, Cookson.com, Redbricks Online, Umist (both
computing and management departments), and the Office of the
Information (Data Protection) Commissioner.