'The Met Police are
running to catch-up with economic and specialist
crime', said Detective Sgt. Howard Shaw, from
the Email Response and E-crime Directive,
Metropolitan Police. One billion people use the
Internet; it is a crime enabler open to a huge pool
of potential victims. There are two categories: the
unwilling and gullible and the willing and greedy.
30-40 websites each day are shut down. He said,
'we
are trying to look out for the hazards and identify
the next threat'. The police continue to be a
monolithic organisation that uses out-dated methods
in the fight against e-crime. However, they are
moving forward and last April they launched The
National Police e-crime Co-ordination Unit. After
the seminar he went directly to the House of Commons
to brief MPs on this venture.
Mike Galvin,
Director of Portfolio Infrastructure, BT,
commenced by saying: 'there are good bits and bad
bits to the Internet'. He spoke about serious
organised Internet crime: child abuse, child
pornography, kidnapping, drugs money and murder. He
described pornographic photos of children in
horrific situations; 40% of these are downloaded in
the USA and 20% to Russia. In the
UK the number is almost zero because it is illegal.
There are 50,000 photos of children being abused
|
on the Internet. He referred to a Taste and Decency
Policy that enables BT to close an account and this
is actively pursued. Not all European countries
offer the same legal protection to children. In
Spain, the legal age of consent is 12 years. 'These
real world problems require checks and balances', he
advised.
Alex Nagle,
Director of Harm Reduction, Centre for Exploitation
and On-line
Protection, gave an overview of this
Government law enforcement agency. CEOP believe in
an analytic approach through educating, engaging and
empowering children and adults about the benefits
and risks. There are social network sites: ‘Habbo
Hotel’ is a virtual world for 9-11 years, ’Bebos’ for
teenagers. These were very well run sites but
children circumvent the checks and blocks. CEOP
work with schools and have a website informing young
people: Thinkuknow.com. He spoke of the importance
of an education programme for parents and youth
panels and improved monitoring of chat rooms.
A full report is
being prepared and will be available at the NCW
Conference in Sheffield |
