The West Mercia Cyber Crime Partnership has existed for a number of years to provide a joined up framework for Police, Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC), business and other sectors to come together to share information.
However, since its inception, technology and how criminals use technology to commit offences has vastly changed. As a result we are going to make some changes and we want to ensure that you are included in this process by listening to and understanding your ideas and opinions.
The intention is to run a Digital Safety Conference twice a year at a venue in the West Mercia policing area and we want to hear from you about whether you’d join us in preventing harm across the Force area. We will cover all Digital aspects including fraud, cyber, online child sexual exploitation, sextortion, trolling and more.
Digital Crime is a growing trend nationally. For example between March 2020 and March 2022, there was a 158% increase in hacking offences. This overall trend has also been felt locally.
Digital Crime also plays a more and more significant role in “traditional” offences such as car theft, stalking and harassment.
Digital Crime cannot be defeated by one person; collaboration is needed with all stakeholders to protect people from harm. We envisage Law Enforcement, Communities, Businesses, Charities, Government Agencies and Academia coming together, sharing knowledge along with ideas, working together on how to prevent cybercrime, online harm and cyber enabled fraud.
Our conference will be hybrid so you can come in person or join online. Our conference will be aimed at front line public sector professionals and local businesses. We want to share the latest threats and issues we are seeing so you can help keep your customers, colleagues and service users safe. The conference will provide especially useful CPD for professionals working with young people such as teachers, social workers and youth workers.
To gauge attitudes, we have a short survey to fill in which hopefully will capture opinions and ideas which we can then work together to develop.
Please take some time (average 5 minutes) to give us your thoughts and we will be in touch shortly with details of the Digital Safety Conference