News

Feedback sought from E-crime victims and investigators

Media Release, Monday 13 September 2004

Anyone who has ever been burned by an e-scam or been involved in investigating one will have a chance to talk about it online, for a survey about e-crime being conducted by a University of Melbourne criminologist.

Shane McKenzie, a Melbourne researcher and lecturer in the Graduate Certificate in E-Crime Investigation (a joint program run by Victoria Police and Melbourne University Private) is seeking feedback from anyone who has ever been a victim of online fraud, suffered “identity theft”, cyberstalking or any other crime that involves IT.

The survey is part of doctoral research that Mr McKenzie is carrying out in the Department of Criminology at the University of Melbourne. A principal theme of the PhD is to examine investigative partnerships between the private sector and police, to see if they do in fact help in solving e-crime. The research is being sponsored by the Victorian Department of Justice and Multimedia Victoria and has the personal backing of Chief Commissioner of Police, Christine Nixon.

“This study looks at the experiences of corporations who have been defrauded but I am also really interested in hearing from individuals or small businesses who have suffered at the hands of fraudsters or hackers. The effects of the crimes can differ vastly, and I want to get a snapshot of the state of e-crime across the whole of society, and not just as it affects big business”.

Mr McKenzie says the most useful outcomes of his research will be an estimate of how much society is affected by e-crime and a model for how police can work more effectively with private sector investigators.

“At the moment, we don’t have a clear idea of the scale of the problem” he says, “so it is difficult to know what level of resources are needed to combat e-crime. That’s partly because many businesses, especially larger, well-known companies, tend not to report it. They fear that reporting means going public, causing negative impact on their brand reputation, and so prefer to handle investigations in-house.

Mr McKenzie says police need to hear about these crimes, even if they are handled in-house, and they can also provide advice to e-crime victims.

“Some companies do go public and build credibility by educating their customers of the dangers.

“But there just haven’t been many studies looking into the e-crime scene, since it hasn’t yet generated the same sorts of political and social pressures that other crimes do, such as those against people or property.

“I want to find out just exactly how much e-crime costs society, learn from its victims and those who investigate it, and consider how the justice system as a whole should best deal with it” he says.

“Ideally this study would have thousands of respondents, and so I want to hear from anyone who has been scammed – whether through auction fraud (ie they paid for something on the Internet and never received it), suffered identify theft (ie someone has duplicated your identity documents and run charges up on your credit card), or been duped into believing spam emails advising of lottery winnings, or other get-rich-quick schemes. Perhaps your kids have been targeted by unsavoury characters online. I also want to hear from people in the private sector who investigate e-crimes.”



Anyone wanting to participate in the study or find out more about research into e-crime should contact Shane McKenzie on 8344 9459 or log on to: www.criminology.unimelb.edu.au/research/crime