UK government pledges support for fighting cyber-crime

UK Home Secretary Jack Straw has promised £337,000 to set up a National Computer Crime Unit, aimed at tackling the rising tide of crime across networks and the Internet.

The money has been pledged to the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS), the body responsible for gaining intelligence on serious and organised crime in the UK.

NCIS said the proposed unit will comprise people from a variety of different private and public sector agencies. NCIS is currently conducting a feasibility study to discover how best to organise the agency and how it will interact with the police. NCIS is used by the police to gain intelligence on serious crime, but has no powers of arrest.

In a letter to NCIS, the Home Secretary Jack Straw said that the money should be used "to prepare the ground for the development of a National Computer Crime Unit".

Last year NCIS conducted a strategic assessment of the dangers of cyber-crime in the UK, and concluded that government had to work with industry to ensure that the Internet did not become a "seductive environment for criminals".