E-crime unit on track, says police chief

Plans for a national UK cyber crime policing unit remain on track despite the government stalling on funding, a top cyber cop has said.

Detective superintendent Charlie McMurdie, Metropolitan Police Service e-crime chief and one of the architects of the proposed Policing Central e-Crime Unit (PCEU), said that regular talks are taking place between government, police bodies and industry about how to fund and run the unit.

silicon.com's e-Crime Crackdown campaign is calling for a national UK cyber crime police unit.

The unit would provide leadership and expertise to co-ordinate investigations nationwide and collate reports from police forces across the country, as well as offering a central point of contact for reporting e-crime.

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Funding for PCEU has been slow to arrive, with the government still not committing to its £1.3m start-up costs, despite expectation that the money would be in place months ago.

It comes after Home Office minister Vernon Coaker told a House of Lords science and technology committee that the National Fraud Reporting Centre (NFRC) could take the lead on co-ordinating e-crime investigations nationwide.

But McMurdie said the government's vision for the NFRC does not undermine the need for the PCEU.

She said: "It is moving towards addressing the problem. The more intelligence we have on cyber crime and the more opportunities there are to report it, the better we will be able to put resources in the most appropriate place.

"But the PCEU business case is that we need that enhanced picture of cyber crime, it is about joining up a lot of good work that is already going on in agencies."

McMurdie was speaking during the e-Crime Wales Summit 2008, where a national force to fight cyber crime in Wales was launched.

The multimillion pound drive will allow the public to report cyber crime to a central body through the e-crime Wales website, fund cyber crime training for local officers and provide workshops for businesses across the country.

Overseeing the Welsh national response will be a new e-crime sergeant and four dedicated officers, who will work with business and high tech crime units in local forces.

North Wales police has also launched Datris, a public-private partnership, to provide computer forensics to the public and police forces. It will start by helping clear North Wales police's backlog of computer analysis work.