The Cybersafe campaign launch featured talks and videos from Dorset Police and online safety organisation, Get Safe Online. Dr Christopher Richardson, who heads up the BUCSU, gave the opening speech. He spoke about the importance of the campaign and BU’s involvement in training around cyber security, saying, “Cyber security is a national threat and our education programme is equipping the future security practitioners for a market which has an increasing shortage of skilled individuals.
"The cyber crimewave and its growth is greatly affected by this skills gap and the limited amount of resources committed to solving the problems it creates. Dorset Police has started to readdress this and we wish them well.”
Cybersafe is a nine month project aimed at educating Dorset people of all ages about staying safe while using the internet. Superintendent Mark Callaghan, Head of Intelligence for Dorset Police and Strategic Lead for the Cybesafe campaign gave an overview of what it was about.
Mark was keen to point out that the Cybersafe was about more than simply raising awareness of cyber crime but about preventing crime, protecting people and about preparing Police Officers to be able to tackle cyber crime. He said, “Our job is to try and prevent cyber crime and I’m passionate about it because it affects everybody. It’s in everybody’s home and anybody could be a victim. The long and the short of it is, it’s crime in a different way and we can’t forget that it’s still crime.”
He went on to comment about Dorset Police’s work with BUCSU and how that is helping to inform and train Dorset’s Police Force.
“The work with Bournemouth University is really exciting because what that does is that takes us into the next dimension of cyber crime. Working with the university means we’re one step ahead, we’re really bringing academia into what we’re doing. On the flip side of that we’ve got my staff getting educated around cyber and we’ve already got a number of students working with us. So there are benefits for everybody.”
Martyn Underhill, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Dorset, also spoke at the event. Giving his support to the campaign, he said, “Crime isn’t going down, it’s going online. And we need to raise awareness of that across the whole spectrum of Dorset and anyone who has access to the internet is at risk. I’m really worried about the vulnerable people in our society, particularly the really young and the really old. You can’t keep them safe online unless they know what the risks are.”
“So that is the idea of today and that’s why we’ve launched this campaign. This isn’t a one day launch, it’s a nine month programme to raise awareness from five year olds to a hundred and five year olds across Dorset how to stay safe online.”
For more information on the Cybersafe campaign you can visit the Dorset Police website.
