Internet: Crime
Margaret Moran MP: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment she has made of levels of e-crime (a) in the last year and (b) over the last five years. [188866]
Vernon Coaker MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Crime Reduction, Home Office: The Government prosecute all crimes based on illegal actions and not the medium used. As such, all legislation criminalises offences regardless of whether they were committed on or off line and so there are no estimated levels of e-crime as a whole.
Margaret Moran MP: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what mechanisms exist for the reporting of e-crime to law enforcement authorities.[188916]
Vernon Coaker MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Crime Reduction, Home Office: The Government take the view that the UK should prosecute criminal acts based on the offence committed and not the medium used. Therefore crimes committed using the internet should be reported in the same way as crimes committed offline; to the police.
Where credit or debit card fraud is involved, the cardholder should report the matter directly to their bank or card company. It is then for the bank or card company to verify the crime and report it to the police. This applies to card fraud committed online as well as offline.
The Government have allocated £28 million over three years to implement the recommendations of the fraud review. This includes the creation of a National Fraud Reporting Centre (NFRC) which will cover online fraud.
Both the Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre (CEOP) and the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) have reporting mechanisms aimed at members of the public to report instances of child abuse or websites containing child abuse images.
Source: Hansard 4 March 2008
Page Created: Fri, March 14th, 2008
Page Modified: Mon, March 17th, 2008
