10 Aug 2007
The Home Office needs to provide £1.5m funding for the new e-crime coordination unit, says a House of Lords select committee.
The rest of the £4.5m needed to support the plan could then be sourced from elsewhere.
Further reading
'If the Home Office provide £1.5m then the rest could be found from the EU and other sources,' said committee member Lord Erroll .
A central unit to fight online crime is vital. At the momment the internet is a 'wild west' where criminals operate outside the the law and users fear e-crime more than mugging, says the report published today.
The government's laissez-faire attitude is 'inefficient and unrealistic', it says.
'The government can put in place incentives for the private sector to up their game,' said committee chairman Lord Broers.
'And they can invest in better data protection and law enforcement.
'It’s time to act now, before it’s too late,' he said.
The report also criticises the decision to allow banks to be the first point for reporting e-crime, and calls for legislation to hold banks liable for personal e-crime losses.
Laws that require organisations to tell their customers when a breach has occurred were also recommended, in line with the situation in the US.
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) supports a more joined-up approach from government, but warns against forcing firms to publish details of attacks.
'Whilst appealing on the surface, new rules such as a data security breach notification law, or increased liabilities on internet service providers and software providers, need to be treated with caution, says the CBI.
Is it just me or is the recent report from the government about internet fraud going just one stage too far?
While the Lord's committee is right to highlight the threat of organised crime and unchecked private usage of the internet, the onus of protection is perhaps a bit skewed.
The question for me is how can government or business protect individual users more when individual users seem to be happy to give their personal details to any tom, dick or harry just because they are online?
For the commission to say that an individual is currently responsible for their own internet security (which is ultimately true), and then imply that this should no longer be the case could set a dangerous precedent. We already see users have little or no regard for their own information once it is on the internet. Social networking is testimony to this, with internet users letting criminals get knowledge of personal details on a scale never before witnessed. How can institutions take more responsibility than they currently do when the personal owners (i.e. each individual user) of information seem to have so little regard for their own security? Statements about individuals being able to absolve themselves further from the responsibility for their own security, and heaping this responsibility onto third parties will only promote crime based on stupidity and a lack of care.
Throwing stones at government and business alike for not protecting the user is a poor solution to managing the problem of fraud. If the purpose of this report it to highlight the poor personal security of many individuals, I applaud it. If it is just to shift the blame to business, obfuscating the need for personal responsibility over your own identity and internet usage, that is something else.
Posted by: Bart Patrick, SAS UK 10 Aug 2007
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