Snapchat ‘fails to help police probe killer’s taunts’
SNAPCHAT was criticised yesterday by Theresa May for refusing to help police investigating online taunts targeted at the family of a boy killed by a paedophile.
she spoke out as a Tory MP told of ‘very distressing and disturbing’ messages being sent to the sister of Breck Bednar allegedly from his killer in jail.
Breck, 14, was groomed on a gaming website before being raped and murdered in 2014 by lewis Daynes. The 19-year-old is serving at least 25 years after being convicted in 2015.
MP Chris Philp said snapchat has refused to help find out who is abusing Breck’s sister Chloe, 17, with messages including some which had ‘graphically recounted’ the teen’s murder.
During Prime Minister’s Questions, he said: ‘The police have asked snapchat to provide the data that would help them definitively identify who has been sending these messages, for example data about the device from which the messages were sent.’ To cries of ‘shame’ from backbenchers, Mr Philp added that snapchat was claiming police would need to appeal to the Us, where it is based, and ‘go through a one-year process to get this vital information’.
Urging Mrs May to intervene, he added: ‘Does the Prime Minister agree this is completely unacceptable?’
Mrs May paid tribute to Breck’s mother lorin laFave for her ‘brave and powerful’ campaigning against internet grooming and said the Ministry of Justice was ‘urgently looking into’ the case.
‘We want social media companies to recognise the responsibilities they have and to work with law enforcement agencies,’ she told the Commons.
‘It has become increasingly difficult for UK law enforcement to access data containing threats to public safety if data is held or controlled in other countries.’ Mrs May highlighted a new Act giving ‘law enforcement agencies the power to obtain electronic data controlled by providers outside the UK where an international agreement is in place’. she added: ‘We expect to establish the first such agreement with the Us.’
security Minister Ben Wallace has said the Act would mean child rapists and terrorists could be caught within days, not years. The measure was brought in after a 700 per cent rise in child abuse being reported by tech companies in the last five years.
snapchat said: ‘ We understand how upsetting this is for the Bednar family. We have provided advice on privacy settings and have terminated the user account.’ he added the site made it ‘very difficult’ for people to be contacted by a user they did not know.
Plans for an agreement were begun under Barack obama to allow UK prosecutors to apply directly to tech firms for data relating to child abuse.