"POLICE will treat the Internet as any other public place, assigning officers to walk a virtual beat in an assault on cyber crime.
An international taskforce involving police forces from around the world is moving towards manning the Internet 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the International Policing Conference in Adelaide heard yesterday.
"As law enforcement officers, the public expect us to provide a duty of care," said deputy director general Jim Gamble of the UK National Crime Squad.
"The Internet will be as good or as bad as the people who frequent it - it's another public place and we need to consider it as another park or shopping mall.
"So we've got to begin occupying it in the same way we do other public places. It's not that far off where we will have 24-7 policing," he said.
The taskforce has been established following concerns from several police forces that cyber crime was progressing as agencies "waste time" dealing with multi-jurisdiction and legislation issues.
"It's about intelligence-led policing, knowing where the problems are, knowing what the difficulties might be and being present in any given chat room when you think there might be a risk."
