Clampdown on web giants over terror messages
WEB giants will be forced to disclose messages from suspected terrorists, paedophiles and other criminals under a new treaty between the UK and the US.
Home Secretary Priti Patel yesterday signed an agreement that will allow the police to demand electronic data from social media companies such as Facebook and WhatsApp.
The world’s first bilateral data access agreement will speed up investigations into ‘heinous crimes’ by allowing law enforcement agencies to go directly to tech firms.
Under current rules, they have to go via governments – a process which can take up to two years. It marks the culmination of four years of intense lobbying by the UK and is seen by Downing Street as an essential tool in the fight against terrorism and sexual abuse.
Miss Patel said: ‘Terrorists and paedophiles continue to exploit the internet to spread their messages of hate, plan attacks on our citizens and target the most vulnerable.
‘As Home Secretary I am determined to do everything in my power to stop them. This historic agreement will dramatically speed up investigations, allowing our law enforcement agencies to protect the public.’
US Attorney General William Barr said: ‘This agreement will make the citizens of both countries safer, while at the same time assuring robust protections for privacy and civil liberties.’ Under the new treaty, the US will also be able to request data from UK web giants. The way it will work is that the police and other law enforcement agencies will submit requests for information to a judge, magistrate or other independent authority.
The agreement does not apply to encrypted messages because even the web giants themselves do not have access to such information.
In the case of WhatsApp, which uses end-to-end encryption, the Government will be able to get the ‘meta data’ more easily, such as details on who has sent messages and when.
In addition, Miss Patel and her US and Australian counterparts have written to Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg calling for a halt to its plans to bring in end-to-end encryption across its messaging service.
They warned that such a move would ‘significantly increase the risk of child sexual exploitation or other serious harms’.
It came after Europe’s top court ruled yesterday that Facebook can be forced to take down illegal posts such as hate speech from its website. It can now be compelled to delete posts, photographs and videos that break the law of an EU nation.
And a national court can force Facebook to take down the content worldwide, the European Court of Justice ruled.
The ruling came in a case brought by Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek, former chairman of Austria’s Green Party, after an Austrian citizen said on Facebook that she was a ‘lousy traitor of the people’ and a member of a ‘fascist party’. Facebook had refused her request for both the original post and similar duplicates to be deleted.
‘This will dramatically speed up investigations’