UK business is concerned that funding for the Police Central
e-crime Unit (PCeU) is inadequate to ensure it succeeds where its
predecessor failed.
After
several delays, just over £7m has been allocated to the unit,
with £3.5m from the government and £3.9m from the Metropolitan
Police.
This is a fraction of the £25m intitial funding provided for the
operation it replaced, the
National High-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU), which was set up in 2001
and disbanded two years ago.
David Roberts, CEO at The Corporate IT Forum, says it is a very
small sum for a very large problem. "We doubt it will be enough to
tackle an issue the Home Office itself calls a global menace," he
says.
Online banking fraud alone cost over £21m in the first six
months of this year according to the latest figures from the UK
payments industry association, Apacs.
Lawrence Kaye, chair at the Society for Computers and Law
internet interest group, says, "We welcome the news, but do not
feel the current level of funding properly reflects the social
threat posed by e-crime."
Since 2006, responsibility for computer-related crime has been
shared by local police forces and the
Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).
As a result, there has been a lack of police resources to fight
day-to-day computer-related crime and no easy way for business and
members of the public to report crimes like online fraud.
These are problems the new PCeU is designed to tackle, according
to unit head, Detective Superintendent Charlie McMurdie. She says
the funding is only part of what is required to make PCeU work and
the unit needs help from the IT industry.
"I know what we are trying to deliver and who has the
appropriate skills in industry that we are going to try to bring in
to work with us," she says.
Support from industry partners is key to the PCeU's success,
says Philip Virgo, Eurim secretary general. "This is more important
than the scale of funding from government," he says.
Virgo says private sector funding should not be a problem,
considering the UK is spending over £3bn a year on information
security. "Giving 10% of that budget in resources and cash to help
police take out the criminals would make good business sense," he
says.
But the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) says any
partnership with industry has to be a two-way street.
"It will need to be a co-operative approach that takes
businesses' concerns on board," says Jeremy Beale, head of
knowledge content at the CBI.
Virgo says the role of the PCeU as a central hub for
co-ordinating cross-force initiatives could make a very big
difference.
Peter Sommer, professor at the London School of Economics, says
he is very keen to see the PCeU succeed, but says successful
co-ordination of efforts may be difficult.
He says there could be squabbling over territory between
agencies covering different aspects of e-crime, but McMurdie is
confident this will not happen.
"The last thing we want to do is duplicate effort, so a lot of
work in putting the business case forward was in mapping out roles
to ensure we will not be treading on each other's toes," she
says.
The plan, everyone agrees, appears to be sound. Whether or not
it will work remains to be seen. What is clear is that it relies
heavily on the support of the private sector.