Central E-crime Police Unit: Funding Update

With Infosecurity Europe being held last week and Internet World and Retail Fraud being held this week, there is an increasing emphasis on Cyber security and in particular payments fraud.

Detective Superintendent Charlie McMurdie of the Metropolitan police spoke at Infosec last week about the proposed central e-crime unit where she was quoted saying: “I'm fairly convinced we'll get the required sum of £5.3m some way or the other. We're looking at days rather than months”.

McMurdie also called for tougher sentencing as a deterrent to committing fraud and referred to cyber-crime as a tough challenge; "If only the policing of the internet was as easy as policing robberies".

At present the 43 UK police forces deal with e-crime separately. In February the government responded to a petition to create a central reporting unit. There are also plans underway to create a National Fraud Reporting Centre as part of the work to be carried out by the National Fraud Strategic Authority.

29th April 2008