Sir Bernard Hogan Howe, the current Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London, recently set the cat among the pigeons by putting more onus on the public to protect themselves from online bank fraud. He said:
"If you are continually rewarded for bad behaviour you will probably continue to do it but if the obverse is true you might consider changing behaviour.
"The system is not incentivising you to protect yourself. If someone said to you, 'If you've not updated your software I will give you half [of your money] back', you would do it."
Almost immediately he was rounded upon by various consumer groups, who typically branded his remarks as "spectacularly misjudged".
I might have put the point slightly differently (something more like "One is not necessarily incentivised to protect oneself against online bank fraud at present") but essentially I think he had a point. I've written for several years on this subject, and at the risk of making myself deeply unpopular, I believe very strongly that everyone has a part to play: it is a joint effort.
