Unveiling the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) on 1
April may not have given the latest addition to the UK's army of
crimebusters the most auspicious of starts. It has certainly left
the agency open to obvious quips about the timing of its
launch.
Such apparent thoughtlessness on the part of government may also
point to a lack of attention to the role and responsibilities of
Soca. And this may have deleterious consequences for the businesses
that are at risk from computer-related crimes.
The agency is, in essence, the UK's answer to the FBI. It is an
amalgam of several crime-fighting agencies, such as the National
Crime Squad and the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU). It boasts
an annual budget of £416m and employs more than 4,000 staff. Soca's
remit is to fight all forms of organised crime, from fraud to
computer crime. But it will focus on hard drugs and illegal
immigration.
In principle, this is all fine. Government wants to check the
proliferation of "big ticket" crimes through a super agency
unfettered by other responsibilities. So it creates one to do just
that.
The practical output of such laudable, big-picture planning is
somewhat different. The failure to pay attention to the fine detail
has provoked justified anxiety among UK companies. They fear
IT-related threats to their businesses may be downgraded in
importance as Soca prioritises citizen-facing crimes.
The business community's concerns were borne out this week by
advice on the NHTCU's website that urged visitors to report
computer crimes to their local police forces.
The government has in one swift move with the creation of Soca
removed an organisation with a clear remit to tackle corporate
computer-crime and replaced it with a patchwork of local police
forces.
In theory, there is nothing wrong with that. In reality, local
police forces' ability to respond to high-tech crime is, at best,
patchy, with some forces boasting well-equipped computer crime
units and many others struggling.
Indeed, for most forces, beset with budgetary constraints and
the need to grapple with daily street crime, the complex world of
corporate e-crime will understandably be of secondary
importance.
This is a tricky situation. There is a serious and genuine risk
that corporate computer crimes may be left under-resourced and
poorly policed, unless government acts decisively to address this
issue. Failure to do so is unacceptable.
If Soca is the government's best answer to organised crime, it
must be given the budget, the authority and the responsibility to
fight all forms of corporate computer crime.
Read article:
Firms fear lack of e-crime action after police
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