Bill urges better cybercrime protection

Labour’s Derek Wyatt, chair of the Commons all-party Internet Group, is to introduce a ten-minute rule bill to highlight the problem of cybercrime.

Mr Wyatt is calling on the Government to update the 1990 Computer Misuse Act (CMA) and to increase the number of penalties contained in the Act. He wants denial of service attacks to be specifically included as an offence and for the penalties for hacking to be increased from six months to two years.

Mr Wyatt said: “The All Party Group was hoping that an MP would have picked this up as part of the Private Members’ allocation for bills but sadly no-one did so it seemed sensible given the work we undertook last year to at least place on record what we think the Bill should look like in the hope that the Government will come back to it after the general election”

The bill is scheduled for reading on April 5.