Civil liberties groups have slammed the Home Office's decision to appoint 80 dedicated 'cybercops' to tackle online crime.

Caspar Bowden, director of the Federation for Information Policy Research, said yesterday's announcement by Home Secretary Jack Straw of £25m funding is a 'back door' attempt to pay for implementing the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Act.

"The Home Office does not want to face up to the cost of the RIP Act," said Bowden.

When the controversial legislation was being passed earlier this year, industry groups warned that the cost would be up to £70m. The Home Office denied this, but Bowden claims that it is now funding it in stages.

"When you add the £25m for these 80 investigators, the £25m technical assistance centre at MI5, and £20m for 'black boxes' [to monitor the data that passes through ISPs' servers], it becomes clear what the cost is," said Bowden.

The Home Office announced that 40 cybercrime specialists, from the police force and Customs, will be based in London at the National High-Tech Crime Unit. Another 40 investigators will be distributed around the country.

The Home Office said it wants to have the investigators operational by April 2001. Home Secretary Jack Straw said the government would make the UK "the best and safest place in the world to conduct and engage in ecommerce".

However, a global treaty to harmonise cybercrime laws has been forced back to the drawing board this week. The Council of Europe, a supra-national legislative body, has been trying to create the first global treaty on cybercrime. But this week it admitted that there had been a number of objections to its proposals.

"We were surprised by the violence of these comments," said a spokesman. The council said it would issue a new draft later this week.