According to a House of Commons report by internet lobby group EURIM and the Institute for Public Policy Research, police officers need better training to deal with digital evidence.
The report blamed a severe shortage of staff to deal with the massive backlog of e-crimes, and pointed a finger at the security industry to provide more help.
It said, "We have around 140,000 police officers in the UK. Barely 1,000 of them have been trained to handle digital evidence at the basic level and fewer than 250 are currently with Computer Crime Units or have higher-level forensic skills.
"Meanwhile there are estimated to be about 8,000 security 'experts' in the private sector. These range from former members of the armed forces, police and security services, now with budgets and technologies to which they rarely had access before they left the public sector, to former hackers with uncertain skills and/or motivation."
The report called for better relation between police and industry experts, and urged MPs to create a single department responsible for policy and delivery.
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