UK’s Amber Rudd urges Silicon Valley to step up anti-terrorist efforts

A senior British politician is visiting Silicon Valley to urge major internet companies to do more to remove extremist comment and help investigators target suspected terrorists using encrypted communications.

The visit to an industry forum by Amber Rudd, the interior minister, marks the UK government’s latest demand for action by tech majors such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, to prevent their platforms from being exploited by extremists to raise funds, promote their causes or plan attacks.

Ms Rudd said the use of encrypted communication networks such as WhatsApp was “severely limiting” the ability of agencies to stop terrorist attacks or to bring to justice those involved in deadly plots.

End-to-end encryption can prevent law enforcement agencies from reading messages sent between plotters unless they seize the devices.

Ms Rudd said industry and governments needed to find a way to allow intelligence services to get information in “very specific circumstances”.

The UK had no intention of banning end-to-end encryption or of asking companies to create “back doors” that would allow investigators access to protected networks, she wrote in an article in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph. Britain’s MI5 and the FBI in the United States have previously said they wanted access to encrypted communications.

But she did not specify what she wanted done to tackle the problem and said solutions would be found in confidential talks with the industry. “Companies are constantly making trade-offs between security and usability and it is here where our experts believe opportunities may lie,” she wrote.

In her article, Ms Rudd said ISIL claimed to have created 11,000 new social media accounts in May. Analysis suggested three quarters of the group’s propaganda was shared within the first three hours, often reaching its target audience before the authorities had time to react.

The British government has repeatedly criticised social media platforms after a series of attacks in London and Manchester this year left 36 people dead. The prime minister, Theresa May, and her French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, have promised to fine internet companies if they did not step up efforts to remove terrorism-related content. The industry has said it wanted to remove extremist material but had to balance these demands with democratic freedoms.

“The question is whether the tech companies are going to get on board and whether anything concrete will come of their promises,” said Hannah Stuart, a security and extremism researcher at the Policy Exchange think tank in London.

Ms Rudd was due to meet executives yesterday at the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, which includes Facebook, Google and Twitter. The forum was set up to allow tech companies to discuss and find solutions. Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, said she visited the company on Monday.

After a global enforcement operation in April, Europol, the European policing agency, said efforts by tech companies to remove inappropriate content had driven supporters of terrorist groups to set up a new platform to spread propaganda and to finance their activities.

Rob Wainwright, the head of Europol, identified the encrypted messaging app Telegram as the biggest mainstream company that has failed to help law enforcement. Telegram is not part of the forum.

It’s founder, Pavel Durov, fled Russia after refusing to hand over data of Ukrainian protesters to authorities.

Indonesia had blocked access to some Telegram channels last month but struck a deal with the company yesterday to tackle terrorist propaganda.

Ms Rudd said industry and governments need to let intelligence services have information in ‘very specific circumstances’