PricewaterhouseCoopers, Arthur Andersen, KPMG they all have ex-police. The Australasian Centre for Policing Research reported last Criminal Pursuit year that an average of one third of all specialist staff across the country resign each year, while between 1995 and 1998, NSW Police suffered a 100 per cent turnaround of computer investigations and forensic staff. Frustrated over the loss of trained staff, Police Commissioner Peter Ryan recently questioned whether the whole area should be left to the private sector, while the Victorian major fraud group last year encouraged private companies to undertake initial investigations before handing cases to the police. Kaufmann says such high staff turnover simply reflects the nature of the information technology sector. There's a great shortage of IT people in Australia, especially security people.
People are going to be moving around, it's just the nature of the industry.
And there are advantages to having ex-police in the private sector, he says. To be acceptable in court, computer evidence must be seized in such a way that it retains its integrity and continuity, and searches and analyses of data have to be done without changing one byte of information. Ex-police know the standards for presentation of evidence, continuity it's all correct. A lot of major companies are having these investigations run for them, and all these things are prime concerns. Ultimately though, the police are attempting to have university training available in computer forensics, to keep up with demand for skilled staff.