Terror expert: web giants have to wipe out IS
BRITAIN will never be safe from jihadis unless Islamic State is wiped from the internet by web giants, a terrorism expert said yesterday.
Patrick McGuinness, the Prime Minister’s deputy national security adviser, said the speed at which fanatics were being radicalised was becoming almost ‘too fast to catch’.
His comments came as an EU counter-terrorism chief warned young fanatics could use the internet to learn how to create viruses instead of bombs.
Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute’s counterterrorism conference in London, Mr McGuinness said technology firms had a ‘choice’ when it came to allowing extremists’ content on their platforms – and had the power to minimise the threat by deploying their ‘A-team’.
He said. ‘Until Islamic State cannot occupy space online freely, we will not be safe.’
This is because ‘the speed at which people are brought to violence is almost too fast to catch without the most extraordinary intrusive surveillance techniques’, he added – techniques which ‘are not going to be sustainable or acceptable in a Western democracy’.
Laying out how the online threat should be tackled, he said: ‘It is massively about the choice that the tech companies make as to what they have on their networks.’
Asked if firms were doing enough, he said: ‘I’m not entirely convinced that we are genuinely at the peak of what we are able to do online.
‘These companies have got it in them to resolve this issue very substantially and free us largely in that space.’
Gilles de Kerchove, the EU’s counter-terrorism co-ordinator, warned of fanatics going online to learn how to make biological weapons.
He said: ‘Unfortunately, it’s probably easier than before for a lone actor to perpetrate an attack with catastrophic consequences.’
While ‘some of them have learned it on the battlefield’, he also warned of the prospect of biological weapons being made in radicalised fanatics’ homes.
The Belgian also predicted a new ‘Daesh 2.0’ group could emerge after the defeat of IS militants in Iraq and Syria if not enough is done to address their grievances.
Jane Marriott, UK director of the Joint International Counter Terrorism Unit, said that although crushing the IS caliphate was a positive step, more needed to be done to stop a new group forming.
Also speaking at the conference, foreign office minister Alistair Burt said terrorism was the ‘scourge of our age’ and warned: ‘No doubt the threat will continue to grow.’
Security minister Ben Wallace said it was vital that the Government stops jihadists returning to the UK, and prosecutes extremists where possible. However, he said this would be almost pointless if others were not prevented from being radicalised online.