Industry backs e-crime unit

E-crime investigation will be the responsibility of the NFRC

Industry experts have welcomed the Home Office plan to fund a dedicated e-crime unit.

The unit will not sit inside the London Metropolitan Police Service, as first proposed, but will instead be the law enforcement arm of the National Fraud Reporting Centre (NFRC).

Under-secretary of state Vernon Coaker said that the Home Office recognised there was a gap to be plugged.

“The office will look to fund a law enforcement capability alongside the NFRC, but we do not have a budget yet,” he said.

The system would mean all types of e-crime would be reported to the NFRC, including those which are not fraud-related.

The law enforcement arm of the unit would then investigate cases in the same way the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit did before it became part of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) in 2006.

That move was criticised by the private sector, which said it no longer had anywhere to report e-crime.

Paul Dorey, chairman of the Institute of Information Security Professionals, said he hoped the new unit would rectify that problem.

“It recognises the growing scale of e-crime and the need to tackle the problem with well-trained professionals,” he said.

John Meakin, information security director at Standard Chartered Bank, said any movement in the area was welcome.

“I am less concerned about the location or focus of the unit ­ the key thing is that something is happening,” he said.

David Roberts, chairman of blue-chip user group The Corporate IT Forum, stressed the urgency of pushing forward with the initiative as soon as possible.

“Any such central policing unit must be well staffed by people trained to understand the sophisticated nature of global electronic crime,” he said.

Coaker will meet all concerned law enforcement agencies next month ­ including Soca, the Met Police high-tech crime unit, and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre ­ to discuss how the proposed unit will dovetail with their respective responsibilities.

The NFRC as a whole is expected to receive about £50m of Home Office funding.