When will the UK government take online fraud and security seriously?
Gordon Brown has chosen Paul Murphy, the MP for Torfaen, to head up the drive to improve data security in Whitehall. This article in Computing wryly points out that "Murphy has no previously recorded interest in IT and his expenses show he spent only £1,139 on computer equipment last year."
Last year, the All Party Group on Identity Fraud called for an identity theft tsar, which seemed like a very good idea indeed. But if this is Gordon's response to that request then that shows just how totally disinterested the government is in the whole area of fraud and security.
Just last week I was talking to Paul Simms from The 3rd Man about how the authorities are failing to take online fraud seriously. As Paul rightly says, if someone walks out of a shop with a pair of trainers that they have not paid for then that is a criminal offence - a security guard will chase them down the street and the police will be called to arrest them. Meanwhile fraudsters are trying (and often succeeding) to steal millions of pounds from online retailers every year and nobody in authority seems to care.
The government really needs to wake up and take proper action, because frausters are having a field day as it stands.