E Commerce A Popular Activity On The Internet - 1388 Words

E-Commerce has been a popular activity on the Internet, for it facilitates commercial acts between online service providers and individuals. The popularity of E-commerce could be reflected by the turnover of the industry. The turnover of e-commerce in Europe grew by 14.3% to reach 423.8 billion euros (about GBP 360.5 billion) in 2014, and that of the United Kingdom (UK) increased by 14.7% and reached 127.1 billion euros (about GBP 108.1 billion) in the same year (Ham, 2015). Important private information (e.g., bank information, gift card numbers) would be recorded while consumers doing online shopping and doing other E-Commerce activities. This recorded information would be stored on the servers of online dealers or be saved in consumers’†¦show more content†¦In order to prevent personal data such as bank information from being intercepted, Data Protection Act 1998 (‘the Act’) has been issued by the UK Parliament. According to the Act, doing Cyber-theft for the commission of a relevant offence (e.g. bank theft) are considered as a criminal offence and could be sentenced for five years imprisonment (Mobbs, 2003, pp.5–6). Cyber-thefts, however, are not being extinguished under the force from the Act. According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), there are 2.5 million incidents of computer misuse (including unauthorised access to personal information and computer virus) reported in England and Wales during the 12 months before 14th August 2015 (TNS BMRB, 2015, p.21), and 3.1 billion pounds per year was estimated to be cost by UK citizens on Cyber-crime (Cabinet Office and National security and intelligence, 2011, p.18). In order to keep the pressure on the Cyber-crime, the British government issued a policy paper of National Security Strategy in which they defined cyber-attacks as a ‘Tier One threat’ to the national security, alongside international terrorism (Cabinet Office, et al., 2015, no paginat ion). Security of E-Commerce is at the cutting edge of future commercial activity. Internet service providers and personal users are both waiting for the implementation of anti-cybercrime policies in order to protect their information from being trespassed. Apart from the public force from