Police need internet skills

National

By JACKLYN SIRIAS
THE Police Department needs more awareness on internet technology to improve services, Assistant Commissioner Ivan Lakatani says.
ACP police human resource development Chief Inspector Lakatani said during a basic security awareness programme at the Datec Learning Centre that more awareness was needed for police officers to learn about services available online that could help them and improve their professional duties.
“There is not much knowledge on how best we can  tap into the technologies available to improve the way we believe in the services available on internet in terms of investigations, in terms of training and in terms of how our human resource department will facilitate its clients,” he said.
He said the awareness was conducted yesterday was to make police personnel aware of the benefits and consequences of using internet.
“We can tap more into what’s good for us and then make sure that we are also fully aware of the negative effects that would come about as a result of the new technology,” Lakatani said.
He said from the awareness, they could plan on what was needed to be done in order to build their profession at the technology level.
“We are looking at building up the capacity of knowledge that the individuals need, the talents that they have in ways that we can use them to complement the technology.”
Lakatani said finance was a challenge to them.
“You can have a good plan that you develop or design, but the implementation is very much dependent  on the resources you have and the major component of implementing whatever plans you have very much depends on the financial capacity to implement those training programmes,” he said.
The participants of the workshop were from the criminal investigation division, fraud, family violence, trainers from Bomana Training College and the human resource development who were involved in coordinating the training.
The awareness was conducted free by Datec Learning Centre general manager Ravi Chandran to assist police.
The officers were introduced to basic security awareness that included topics on security threats, publishing, social networks, mobile threats, new technology threats and the kind of solutions available online to prevent them.