Internet giants ‘are hampering terror probes’

INTERNET giants have ‘made life easier’ for terrorists, paedophiles and gangsters by hampering police investigations, a damning report concludes.

The police watchdog said crime-solving abilities were frustrated by encrypted messaging services such as WhatsApp.

A report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary said detectives were undermined by the technology, which cannot be decoded by officers. Yesterday Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Tom Winsor warned internet firms should brace themselves for ‘evertightening’ regulation unless they went further in co-operating with police.

Firms including Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter are already under fire for not doing enough to remove online terrorist content. Sir Tom reserved his strongest language to condemn internet giants who were using customers’ privacy as an excuse to thwart investigations into serious crimes.

He said it was ‘unacceptable’ for officers to be denied access to data on an encrypted device seized in an investigation if they have a warrant signed by a judge.

‘If the giants of that world continue to devise ways to frustrate law enforcement then public opinion will not tolerate it,’ said Sir Tom. ‘They have a diminishing opportunity to do today what the public need them to be able to do. If they fail in that respect, the case for compulsion will be ever stronger.’ Sir Tom said there were ‘very few legitimate reasons in democratic countries to prevent properly-operated law enforcement agencies... from getting access to communications and other data’.

‘The wide availability of impenetrable end-to-end encryption services has made life easier for terrorists, paedophiles and organised criminals, and harder for law enforcement,’ he added.