Cybercrime Prevention: Who's doing what?
The breadth of offences that are encompassed by the term "cybercrime" or "e-crime" is a complicating factor in attempting to police it. In fact, no single authority has absolute control of the issue and some state police departments have developed their own strategies regarding particular elements of cybercrime.
The Victorian Police Service, for example, has had a Computer Crime Investigation Squad (CCIS) in place since 1993 and its task has been to aid in the discovery and handling of technology-related offences. It liaises with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and is primarily responsible for developing computer crime investigation and computer evidence handling procedures, as well as Internet investigation practices.
Interestingly, a special section of the NSW police, the Child Protection Enforcement Agency, has established the Child Exploitation Internet Unit to help with the crackdown on Net-related offences regarding children. These include offences relating to child paedophilia and child pornography. It tends to take a more proactive approach with this problem by analysing Web sites and newsgroups which could lead to possible offenders.
All state police departments have units that handle several types of fraud, including those that are technology related. South Australia's Serious Fraud Investigation Branch handles the state's problems relating to cybercrime offences that have a white-collar aspect, including fraud and false pretences, theft, breach of trust and secret commissions.
The widely varying types of cybercrime tend to be reflections or instantiations of "real" world crimes. A particularly disturbing variant of this is the offence generally referred to as cyberstalking.
