Police e-crime unit to tap business expertise

Law enforcers are to engage with businesses to gain a better picture of e-crime

The newly formed Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) is to consult with businesses in an attempt to prioritise its efforts and provide greater clarity about its role and function.

Group members will be encouraged at a CSO Forum event, hosted by IT user group The Corporate IT Forum (Tif) later this month, to establish a dialogue between their organisations and the new unit.

The session will cover the unit's funding, remit and powers, identify current reporting procedures and discuss the state of e-crime, before creating a plan for future direction, according to Tif.

The consultation was arranged to increase engagement between business users of IT security and the e-crime police authorities. Tif undertook a year-long campaign calling for a replacement for the popular National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU), which was subsumed into the Serious Organised Crime Agency in 2006.

However, since the PCeU was announced last year, Tif has expressed concern that the unit is not receiving sufficient funding. The PCeU has been granted just £7m over the next three years, whereas the NHTCU received over £20m when it was set up.

David Roberts, chief executive of Tif, explained that the closer collaboration between the two bodies would help the PCeU get a better idea of the scale of e-crime in the UK and which areas need prioritising.

"It is not them coming to tell Tif members what to do, or Tif members trying to tell the PCeU, but a sharing and recognition of a collective responsibility, " he said.

"We are in the fortunate position of having a group of organisations willing to work with the PCeU in order to collaboratively work out how to exchange information, and for the forces to be able to have more data to more accurately pinpoint the troublesome areas."

Roberts added that he would like to see the relationship between the two organisations formalised in the future, potentially with "teams jointly populated with Tif members and PCeU people".

The CSO Forum is due to take place on 24 February, organised by Tif's specialist information security service, tISS.