A study by HMIC on digital crime and policing has highlighted the importance of specialist training in digital crime for all serving police officers.
There was a time when digital crime was policed by specialist units within the police force at national and regional levels. Whether this was the right approach at the time is debatable but the prevalence of such types of crimes means that it is no longer a sustainable approach and all police forces need to adapt and ensure their staff are adequately trained. Digital or online offences are now so common that all police should be equipped with the skills, knowledge and awareness to understand and be able to proactively fight cyber crime.
Technology has moved at an incredible pace and unfortunately, for the police and the general public, criminals have kept pace with developments. This presents a huge challenge for law enforcement and the HMIC have concluded that more training is required.
The study found there is a huge difference in awareness and knowledge amongst the police largely dictated by an individual’s use of technology outside of the workplace. It also found differences in attitudes towards their role in tacking digital crime.
Many of those involved in the study acknowledged the need for better understanding and more training. They spoke of frustration and lack of confidence when faced with the task of investigating criminal activity in this area.
At present there is training available but at Peel Solutions we support the view that so much more needs to be done. Members of our senior team have extensive experience of working in the police and have also worked with the College of Policing to develop training courses for the police. We have taken this experience and expertise and developed a range of courses which provide crucial, specialist training in this area.
Andy Orriel, Head of Cyber and Intelligence Skills at Peel solutions is our in-house expert and has in depth experience in this area as well as experience of murder investigations, international drug conspiracies, international money laundering, kidnaps, professional standards and human trafficking.
During his career within law enforcement, Andy developed an in-depth knowledge of communications data, cyber crime, open source and digital media. He has designed our portfolio of training courses on cyber crime and intelligence and the course content draws on his extensive, practical experience.
Andy also delivers the training courses so attendees have the opportunity to question him, discuss case studies which are based on real digital crimes and talk to him about the challenges that continuous advances in technology present.
Our portfolio of courses in this area includes:
Tactical Intelligence Analysis Training
Effective Analysis of Communications Data
Open Source Research & Investigation
Analysis in Evidence
Cybercrime Awareness
Dark Web/ Bitcoin Overview
We are also happy to discuss bespoke training for police forces and other organisations with an interest in investigations, intelligence and digital crime.