Regional e-crime units get go-ahead

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The UK’s police forces will begin to pool e-crime resources to establish a network of regional crime squads.

The plans were introduced as part of the government’s cyber defence strategy unveiled this week .

And they were yesterday welcomed by The Metropolitan Police and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).

Janet Williams, temporary Met Assistant Commissioner and ACPO lead on e-crime, said the plans would compliment the work of the Met's Police Central e-Crime Unit.

The unit was established last year to replace the disbanded National High Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU), but has faced criticism for a lack of resources.

“The internet has rapidly become the hub of personal and business activity and is significant in the majority of financial and intellectual transactions,” she said, citing a recent Chatham House paper that reported “the cyber world has become a tempting and lucrative target for the modern criminal enterprise”.

Commenting on the cyber security report, she said: “This strategy is the first stage in developing a more consistent approach to e-crime across UK police forces, increasing the skills and capacity for law enforcement officers to tackle such criminality and to mainstream e-crime into everyday policing and law enforcement activities.”

Williams added that ACPO was working with forces to identify the most efficient and effective methods to deliver e-crime policing throughout the country.

“One option being actively pursued is the brigading of specialist e-crime resources from forces in each region into collaborative e-crime hubs,” she added.

And she said that this activity would follow the model successfully implemented in some other areas of specialist policing, “bringing together a critical mass of e-crime specialists within each region to create a centre of excellence in e-crime policing”.

The work of the hubs would also enhance both industry and public confidence in the security of the internet, Williams added.

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