Indian cyber security task force to be launched by David Cameron

Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to set out plans for Britain to form a joint cybercrime task force with India later today.

The partnership is said to have been embarked on because of the high amounts of information stored on Indian computer servers about British citizens through data outsourcing deals.

Cameron is set to announce the joint initiative at a meeting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi later today, which forms part of his three-day trade tour of the sub-continent.

According to the Telegraph newspaper, Cameron is reported to have told reporters that helping India shore up its cyber defences would in turn bolster the data protection offered to British citizens.

"Other countries securing their data is effectively helping us secure our data," he said.

During the discussion he is reported to have dampened down speculation about which nations posed the greatest threat to Britain and India.

"The threat in terms of cyber security comes from all sorts of different places and organisations a lot of it is criminal...hacking bothers me wherever it comes from," he added.

The deal is designed to protect the personal details of millions of Britons from the growing threat of cyber criminals in several ways.

These include the creation of a joint task force who will identify and tackle IT security threats and cyber skill training exchanges between members of the British and Indian police forces.

"What the British have done is brought together a strategy to help protect key industries, key infrastructure and key capabilities in terms of cyber security and that's work we want to share with others," Cameron added.

Caroline Donnelly is the news and analysis editor of IT Pro and its sister site Cloud Pro, and covers general news, as well as the storage, security, public sector, cloud and Microsoft beats. Caroline has been a member of the IT Pro/Cloud Pro team since March 2012, and has previously worked as a reporter at several B2B publications, including UK channel magazine CRN, and as features writer for local weekly newspaper, The Slough and Windsor Observer. She studied Medical Biochemistry at the University of Leicester and completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Magazine Journalism at PMA Training in 2006.