House of Lords unleashes soundbites from Personal Internet Security report

"Sad hackers", "Wild West" and "Playground of criminals"

10 August 2007 17:11 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

The House of Lords has called upon the government, as well as companies and individuals, to do more about e-crime.

It seems the folk at the dusty old British institution that is the House of Lords have produced a report criticising the government's "Wild West" approach in what it calls the "playground of criminals".

But the Lords Science and Technology Committee published the Personal Internet Security report doesn't just want to the government to get involved, it also calls on:

"the IT industry and the software vendors, the banks and internet traders, and the internet service providers."

Stating that today's cyber-crimes are "not the sad hacker in their back room" but organised crime, the report called for new measures to tackle these online offences.

The report suggests a central system for reporting of e-crime, increased resources to be available to police and a kite-mark type scheme that would identify internet service providers that guaranteed a secure service.

In addition banks and other companies should have to abide by a new law that would require them to tell a central authority when there was an online security breach.

A Home Office spokesperson politely said: "We are grateful for the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee's contribution and work in investigating this important area and will look at the report carefully and respond to the committee shortly".

Full tags

Software, Websites, Online