Police confirm cybercrime budget cut

The Metropolitan Police have confirmed their budget for battling cybercrime nationally has been slashed by the Home Office. The Register revealed on Friday that central government funding for the Police Central eCrime Unit (PCeU) had been quietly cut by 30 per cent. A spokeswoman for the Met said the PCeU had been targeted as …

[BoldMan]

what did they achieve?

What did they do and what were their successes?

[irish donkey]

Why spend their own money

Much more important is the spying which all the ISP's are now having to do on their customers at our expense just in case the Government need the information.

I sure the scope of that document can be widened to include other information/data/IP Address's

No opinion no icon as to good or bad… it's all just evitable... the free Internet is gone so just have to get on with it.

[DataFish]

Perhaps Share the Burden

Although the budget will be cut by an estimated 30% there is still allot more that big business can do to help protect its members and customers.

Perhaps focus should be aligned at the proceses and practices of our business community. Have they really donw all they can to secure our information...only last week there was a report of Council employees stealing data from the councils they work for.

[Anonymous Coward]

And...

what was the the Met's PCeU's end goal?

Was it trying to replace the National High Tech Crime Unit (NHCTU) that was fizzled out a few years back?

If so, like BoldMan I ask, what did they achieve?

From experience I can tell you that there are many Constabulary based HTCU units that have had very little or zero funding increases for years. They've survived without volumes of money and been successful in aiding with the prosecution of criminals.

It's ironic that when just one of the Metropolitan Police's departments get the funding rug pulled from beneath it, this becomes newsworthy.

PS: Posted anonimously as I will be attending the ACPO Cybercrime conference later this month..

[Chris Williams]

Re: And...

As the story states, PCeU is a national unit, so yes, cuts its budget are more newsworthy than local units.

It is indeed effectively the successor to NHTCU, excepting a circa 2-year hiatus after formation of SOCA.

[Anonymous Coward]

Posted anonymously

How anonymous do you think you really are? ;-)

[Sillyfellow]

what good were they in the first place?

i mean, does anyone out there know of any individual (not company) at all who both: got ripped off by card scammers/identity fraudsters, and the prepetrators actually caught and prosecuted?

i don't know of any, in fact a couple years back me and wife got defrauded, and got the delivery address (plus fake name), for goods purchased by the thieves with stolen card details. we gave these details to the police (England), and they literally said to me that: they would not persue it as they were all busy with 'higher priority" issues, and did not have the manpower to do what i pay them taxes to do. (arrest thieves).

so what good have they been anyway?

thanks for listening to my little whiney rant. :?)

[Trevor_Pott]

UK police cut cybercrime budget

100% of remaining likely to be spent hunting single-song P2P infringers.