Committee asserts UK government
is lax on e-crime

The UK’s House of Lords’ Science and Technology Committee has
slammed the government for “putting its head in the sand” when it
comes to enhancing the security of internet-based electronic
commerce. The committee was reacting to the government’s response
to the committee’s report, Personal Internet Security, in which it
made no commitment to accept any of the major recommendations the
committee had made.

“The internet relies on the confidence of millions of users, and
that confidence is in danger of being undermined unless we can
reverse the trends that our witnesses told us about,” warned the
Earl of Erroll, a member of the committee that undertook the
inquiry.

The committee believes not only the government is at fault for not
preventing the internet from increasingly becoming “the playground
for criminals”. In a release accompanying its report, the committee
slammed the government, hardware and software manufacturers and
internet service providers (ISPs) for taking a “laissez-faire
attitude” to internet security. This approach had created what the
committee termed a “wild west” culture in which the end user alone
is responsible for ensuring they are protected from criminal
attacks online.

However, said Lord Erroll: “We heard compelling evidence of
substantial amounts of e-crime and we were entirely persuaded that
individuals were unable, on their own, to continue to keep
themselves secure.”

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Among recommendations made by the committee were:

• increase the resources and skills available to the police and
criminal justice system to catch and prosecute e-criminals;

• establish a centralised and automated system, administered by law
enforcement, for the reporting of e-crime;

• provide incentives to banks and other companies trading online to
improve the data security by establishing a data security breach
notification law;

• improve standards of new software and hardware by taking the
first steps towards the establishment of legal liability for damage
resulting from security flaws; and

• encourage ISPs to improve the security offered to customers by
establishing a standards certification for ISPs.

In addition, the committee recommended that the government
establish a scheme for recording all forms of electronic crime. “We
don’t know quite how bad things have become today – there are no
reliable figures for e-crime,” said Lord Erroll. “If you have no
idea of the scale of the problem, how can you design
solutions?”

However, he continued, the government’s reply to the committee’s
suggestion that all electronic crime should be recorded was that it
did “not see that there is a need” for this.

He explained: “Throughout our inquiry we tried to think outside the
box, to look ahead ten years at what the internet might be like,
taking into account the emerging risks and challenges today. That’s
why our recommendations concentrated on incentives – we must ensure
that everyone is motivated to improve security.

“Unfortunately, the government dismissed every recommendation out
of hand.”