E-crime has started to shoot up the political agenda as the Labour and Tory parties increasingly see the area as an important policy battleground.

Shadow home secretary David Davis last week launched a Conservative green paper on e-crime, and said the government had made little attempt to solve the problem.

“The government’s approach to this growing threat lacks co-ordination, focus and urgency,” he said.

“There is a strong sense it is in denial over the extent and the nature of the challenges facing this country from organised cyber crime ­ – they do not even know the full extent of the problem.”

Recent research by YouGov estimated that the UK holds £361bn-worth of information online ­ – all of it potentially vulnerable to cyber criminals.

The Tories unveiled a number of proposals to protect this information, including:

• Introducing a new agency to fill the gap left by rolling the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) into the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca).
• Introducing a data breach notification law.
• Encouraging more internet security training in colleges and schools.
• Giving a minister the brief of co-ordinating cyber-crime policy across Whitehall.
  

The government has often been accused of a lack of commitment in addressing e-crime.

Businesses have said that rolling the NHTCU into Soca cut off crucial connections with law enforcement (Central unit fights cybercrime).

And the government ignored most of the recommendations of a House of Lords inquiry into personal internet security.

“We would refute the suggestion that the public has lost confidence in the internet and that lawlessness is rife,” the government said in its official response.

But recent events such as the HM Revenue & Customs lost discs fiasco, and the news that China is spying on UK businesses via the internet, have caused the government and law enforcement to sit up and take notice of the dangers.

Addressing these issues in government policy is a slower process than the Tories realise, according to Labour MP Alun Michael.

“If you want government to do things it will be done in a bureaucratic and legalistic way ­ – whereas if you engage as a partner with industry you can get an approach that is more realistic in tackling the things we want to prevent on the internet,” he said.

Michael was involved in the launch of the UK branch of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) this week, which aims to introduce further law and governance into the web ­ – see The Internet Governance Forum, below.

And the government is starting to look at other ways in which cyber crime can be tackled, according to Sharon Lemon, head of the e-crime unit at Soca.

“The Home Office is chairing a working group to look at how resources could be distributed,” she said. “Allocation needs to be done carefully ­ – the establishment of a central unit does not answer all the questions.”

As well as central e-crime units such as Soca re-opening links with business ­ – see Soca to rethink e-crime fight – ­ local law enforcement is starting to take the problem more seriously.

E-crime is now part of the assessments for local police forces, so chief constables will be obliged to start addressing the problem (Police to be assessed on e-crime response).

And next week will finally see a major shakeup in the way the subject is approached by the police, with e-crime to be given a separate portfolio in the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) alongside 11 other key areas such as terrorism and standard crime.

Sources also say the Home Office is expected to provide £1.3m of initial funding for a central e-crime coordination unit this month - a decision delayed since last summer.

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The Internet Governance Forum

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) has launched a UK branch for government and business to discuss the best approach to governing the internet.

The organisation aims to develop a common approach to reducing crime online, stopping illegal downloading and making the web as accessible as possible.

The scheme will avoid treading on toes, according to Labour MP Alun Michael. “We are working on how it might be possible to have a comprehensive partnership dealing with the reduction of crime and nuisance online and doing it in a way that does not interfere with things that are already happening,” he said.

The forum will help develop a common approach when attending the next international IGF meeting in Delhi this December.

The IT industry is primarily represented in the UK forum by internet registry company Nominet.