European e-crime portal scheme floated

Lending Voice to cybercrime victims

British academics and information security experts are teaming up in plans to develop a cybercrime reporting portal for Europe.

The project, still at the blueprint stage, aims to get a more accurate idea of the true levels of cybercrime in Europe, an area currently clouded in doubt, Infoworld reports.

The scheme is part of efforts by a new group called Victims of Internet Crime Europe, or Voice, to encourage more victims of cybercrime to come forward. In the US, victims of crime can report problems to Internet Fraud Watch and the Internet Crime Complaint Centre.

European states lack any kind of clearing house for cybercrime. Victims often fail to report internet crime since they don't know where to complain, according to David Lilburn Watson, a computer forensic experts from Forensic Computing.

Voice aims to plug this gap with a portal that will act as a clearing house for data on cybercrimes for countries throughout the EU. The scheme aims to increase visibility on the true level of cybercrime in a bid to push the issue higher up the agenda of law enforcement officers. Victims would be able to report online crimes - ranging from auction fraud, online scams and hacking attacks, to the circulation of illicit images - anonymously.

Data processing software might also be used to extract trends from the data, potentially aiding police by illustrating patterns in online crime.

Voice, which operates as a non-profit group intends to approach the EU for funding for the project, announced at the Third Annual International Conference on Global E-security at the University of East London (UEL) earlier this week. ®