Molly’s dad urges web firms: Give us secrets on her phone
THE family of schoolgirl Molly Russell have found it ‘impossible’ to discover potentially vital information about what she viewed online in the hours before she killed herself.
Her parents – who have accused social media companies of contributing to her death – have been unable to gain access to both her Apple iPhone and iPod Touch, which are both encrypted.
They have also been hamstrung by efforts to access the 14-yearold’s social media accounts, which do not become accessible to parents even if a child dies.
Molly’s father Ian Russell told the BBC: ‘There is data on her electronic devices that we can’t access because it is locked in there. It seems to me that the data on Molly’s phone should become her parents’ property. She died without a will, she was 14 and everything else quite naturally returns to us as her parents.
‘We need to find out what it was that drove her to make that final decision – that encouraged her to take her life at the end.’
Meanwhile, north London senior coroner Andrew Walker is writing to tech giants including Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest, demanding they hand over her data.
As part of the investigation into her death, Mr Walker will also ask Apple and the messaging service WhatsApp to provide information.
Mr Russell, who has called for tech firms to do more to remove distressing material glamorising suicide, said the legal situation surrounding ownership of a dead child’s data is ‘confused’. ‘The coroner handling Molly’s case thankfully seems to be very interested and wants to know how he should best handle such cases,’ he said.
Companies including Instagram have said they will assist the inquest into Molly’s death. But it remains unclear whether they will allow access to her accounts. Instagram boss Adam Mosseri is due to meet Health Secretary Matt Hancock today.
The Government has threatened to ban social media firms after details of Molly’s death in November 2017 prompted calls for a clampdown on so-called ‘suicide porn’. The development comes as police say they are swamped by online child abuse referrals which have more than doubled in a year.
Scotland Yard revealed yesterday that the number of reports about child pornography and online grooming have rocketed by 139 per
‘What drove her to take her life?’
cent. Its unit dedicated to tackling the abuse of children saw referrals leap from 1,050 in 2017 to 2,514 in 2018.
Officers received 317 tips about possible offences in London in January this year alone. The alleged crimes range from possession of indecent images through to sexual grooming and planned abuse of vulnerable children. The proportion of cases reported by tech giants also increased to 1,795 last year, an 80 per cent rise on 2017. Most of these reports are made through the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, an American non-profit organisation that protects children. US federal law requires tech firms to report child abuse. Detective Inspector Tony Oakes, from the Met’s Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation team, said: ‘Over the past few years, we have worked closer than ever with other forces, partner agencies, the Government and social media companies to catch those responsible for perpetrating child abuse online and bringing them to justice. We are continuing to work more cohesively, especially with tech firms all around the world, to make sure that indecent images of children are being removed and that we can track down the criminals who are committing these offences.’
He warned parents and teachers to be vigilant about children sending indecent images of themselves to strangers online.