Minister: tech firms ‘having it both ways’ are failing to stop spread of terror

TECHNOLOGY giants like Whatsapp and Apple have “big moral questions” to answer over their failure to prevent terrorists from plotting attacks online, the security minister has said.

Ben Wallace suggested the firms were hypocrites because they carried out more surveillance on their customers than some governments, yet refused to help security agencies access encrypted messages sent by criminals.

He told the BBC’S Inside Out London investigation into Isil’s use of encrypted messaging apps that the companies wanted to “have it both ways”. Undercover reporters for the BBC were given instructions by jihadists through an encrypted messaging service to attack London Bridge and Westminster using vehicles and knives, a year before both sites were attacked in fact.

Mr Wallace said it was time messaging services worked with the security services to disrupt plots: “They survey my details and your details every minute of the day, and many of them sell these details to third parties to make profit. They can’t have it both ways.”

Technology firms have mounted strong opposition to changing their encryption features. During the drafting of the Investigatory Powers Bill, a coalition including Facebook – which owns Whatsapp – Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo said: “We reject any proposals that would require companies to weaken the security of their products via back doors, forced decryption or any other means.”

Jamie Bartlett, of think tank Demos, told the BBC that technology companies did not want to take legal responsibility for content shared on their platforms.