The government has promised£11m to fund three bodiesto fight
fraud, but appears to be ignoring e-crime.
The Comprehensive Spending Review published last week earmarked
£11m to fund a National Fraud Strategic Authority, a Lead Police
Force, and a National Fraud Reporting Centre.
But there was no specific mention of support for the e-Crime
Unit of the Association of Chief Police Officers.
The Home Office budget will rise from £9.2bn to £10.3bn, with an
extra £220m set aside by 2010-11 for counter-terrorism work.
A Home Office spokesman said decisions on specific allocations
will be made in the next few months.
Last week, Paul Evans, executive director of the Serious
Organised Crime Agency, said
many fraudsters are organised criminals who use the internet to
distribute e-mail spam to lure victims. The money they get from
scams is reinvested in more serious crimes such as drug dealing,
people smuggling and terrorism.
Such frauds are "e-enabled". But police might ignore other
"e-enabled" crimes such as extortion from DDoS attacks, theft or
destruction of intellectual property from hacking or viruses.
Lord Erroll, a member of the House of Lords select committee on
science and technology, said the government "would be mad to ignore
e-crime".
"If there is not an element to deal with e-crime they are
wasting their breath," he said. "They would be missing a huge
opportunity to improve Britain as an e-enabled country capable of
delivery trusted e-commerce and e-government services."
In August the select committee
called on the Home Office to provide "without delay" the funds
to kick-start a centralised police e-crime unit. Computer Weekly
reported earlier
ACPO's unit was looking for £4.5m. Commander Sue Wilkinson, who
headed the unit, is now on secondment in Australia.
