To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made additional resources available to the police to help tackle online crime during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered on
27 May 2020
The Government is determined to prevent criminals from taking advantage of people spending more time online during the current period of public health restrictions.
To support police forces, £84 million of the Police Uplift grant has been reallocated specifically for COVID-19 expenses and recruitment. We continue to work closely with the sector to monitor any additional pressures.
We recently launched a gov.uk page on coronavirus-related fraud and cybercrime. The page includes easy-to-follow steps for people to better protect themselves and signposts other relevant advice and tips.
It can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-fraud-and-cyber-crime.
We have continued to work across the online threats to boost funding to tackle online crime. For example, the Government in September 2019 announced an additional £30m funding for this financial year to ensure offenders are no longer able to hide in the shadows on the dark web and prey on our society’s most vulnerable while they are at home.
Police forces continue to assess threats, the impact of COVID-19, and deploy resources accordingly including on online crimes. The National Crime Agency, the lead on tackling the online threat of child sexual abuse, has already disseminated over 1,000 cases to policing and continues to prioritise safeguarding children during these difficult times.
We have also launched guidance for parents and carers to keep children safe online during the coronavirus pandemic, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-keeping-children-safe-online.