Police e-crime funding set for green light?

Start-up funding could be secured for a national police e-crime unit this month, the Metropolitan Police officer behind the plans has told silicon.com.

Detective Superintendent Charlie McMurdie, who has just stepped down as head of the Metropolitan Police Service's e-crime unit, is waiting for Home Office approval for the £1.3m start-up costs for the Policing Central E-Crime Unit proposed by the Met and the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) last year.

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

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

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Police, businesses and politicians have been calling for a dedicated cyber crime unit since the National High Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) was absorbed into the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca) in 2006.

silicon.com has also this week launched its e-Crime Crackdown campaign to get a dedicated national cyber crime policing centre for the UK.

The proposed PCEU's staff of 45 officers and IT industry and academic experts would co-ordinate response to e-crime between the 43 police forces nationwide and collate their reports.

McMurdie said the unit would also allow forces to share expertise, provide a national bank of contacts in high tech industries, allow businesses and the public to report cyber crime centrally using the Metropolitan Police's Stirling website and rapidly warn UK forces and businesses of emerging threats.

She said: "It focuses our resources. By co-ordinating intelligence across the forces it allows us to quantify the problem of the internet being used by criminals so we can put the infrastructure in place and treat these problems as serious crimes. It will be police officers working in partnership with industry so we all benefit from sharing our knowledge - you will have cops sat next to ISP employees, sat next to somebody from the banking system."

If the PCEU pieced together a larger, nationwide attack from regional incidents it could either investigate this itself or nominate a local force to lead the investigation.

With the scope of the PCEU still being agreed it is uncertain whether it would have the funding to reinstate the attached technical experts for each force that were brought in by the NHTCU.

The PCEU is expected to be based at the Met and to be funded by the Home Office, ACPO and industry.

Detective Chief Inspector Simon Taylor, Acpo officer for business crime, said the remit of the PCEU was still being agreed but that he hoped it would achieve several key objectives.

He said: "I would see a centralised unit as a source of expertise for officers investigating cyber crime and as a central reporting point for people and businesses. It would also run a website giving advice on how to avoid becoming a victim of e-crime.

"If attacks were coming from inside the UK it could pinpoint that and decide which force needs to investigate it. We are trying to get smart around an area which is accelerating, we do not want it to accelerate too quickly and to get left behind."

McMurdie will meet with Home Office minister Vernon Coaker and Acpo head of crime and British Transport Police chief constable Ian Johnston to discuss the business case for the unit next week.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "We are currently in receipt of the proposal by the Metropolitan Police Service and Acpo and are considering the issues it has raised. We are currently considering the best approach for tackling cyber crime through existing resources."