CHAPTER 3: THREATS
Non-police enforcement
3.33.
Not all crime is dealt with by the police or the NCA. For example:
(a)
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs [HMRC] and the Home Office’s
Immigration Enforcement branch deal with serious organised crime as well as
localised and individual enforcement matters. The cost to the UK from
organised attacks on the tax regimes administered by HMRC was estimated at
£4.7 billion in 2011-12.23
(b)
Local authorities and specialist agencies deal with many other crimes and
dangers to public safety including the regulation of gambling, benefits fraud,
trading standards, gangmasters and environmental protection.24
These are all areas that will need to be addressed for the foreseeable future and, so
long as these specialised agencies and other authorities are required to be
investigatory and enforcement bodies, they will need the powers to undertake their
task effectively.
Public safety
3.34.
Public safety, especially dealing with missing and vulnerable persons, is a very
significant area of police activity. It is also one that places a high demand for
communications data to help in the location and identification of such people.
3.35.
In Great Britain the police dealt with an average of 838 missing person reports every
day in 2012-13.25 Some 6% of all communications data requests during the survey
conducted by the Association of Chief Police Officers [ACPO] in 2012 related to
investigations into missing or vulnerable people.26
Conclusion
3.36.
Investigatory powers, often of a rather basic nature, may assist in the detection and
investigation of any crime that is prefaced or followed by electronic communication,
whether it is a drugs importation arranged by telephone or a stolen item advertised on
eBay.
3.37.
More complicated, and serious, are the problems posed by internet-enabled crime.
Though a historic force for good, the internet has complicated and magnified the threat
in a number of ways:
(a)
23
24
25
26
providing a new platform for some crimes (fraud, sexual grooming);
Submission received from HMRC.
For example, Ofcom told me that in the three years to December 2014, among many other regulatory
functions, it conducted 2,753 investigations into offences such as unlicensed broadcasting and the
placing on the market or putting into service of apparatus liable to cause harmful interference to users
of the spectrum.
Missing persons: data and analysis 2012-13, NCA (November 2014).
Submission received from ACPO.
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