British minister wants to use volunteers to fight internet crime

Volunteers in England and Wales should be given more powers to assist the police in the fight against cybercrime, says a proposal from the British Home Office. The government is calling on people with IT knowledge to contribute to research.

The aim of the current proposal is that the police can give volunteers a number of powers that are still vested in officers and that can be used for investigating internet crime. Some ‘core powers’ would be excluded and left exclusively with the police.

According to the British Foreign Secretary, Theresa May, there is a great need for citizen’s IT knowledge in the police and the proposal is to give them more powers. The volunteers would then be allowed to contribute unpaid. “This government wants to encourage those with skills in demand, such as those with special IT knowledge, to get involved and help the police investigate cybercrime. As their experience grows, they should be able to play a greater role in investigations,” May says in a consultation paper about the proposals. That consultation has now been completed and the ministry wants to convert the plans into legislation ‘due to the level of support for the proposals’.

In addition to expertise and flexibility, the deployment of unpaid volunteers should ensure that police officers can free up their hands for other matters, so that they can concentrate on their core tasks. Critics tell the BBC that the measures are motivated by years of cost savings and that volunteers are unsuitable for this work because they can stop whenever they want.