Social media must do more in fight against terrorists: Rudd

Home secretary says security services must be able to eavesdrop on messages

Encrypted messaging services like WhatsApp should build back doors into their systems so intelligence agencies can read suspected terrorists’ messages during investigations, the Home Secretary has said.

Amber Rudd said she supports end-toend encryption, offered by the likes of WhatsApp, but said security services must be able to eavesdrop on messages when they have a warrant.

It comes amid reports Westminster terrorist Khalid Masood used WhatsApp seconds before launching Wednesday’s attack, but agencies are unable to see what was communicated.

Ms Rudd also insisted the likes of Google, which runs the social video sharing platform YouTube, and smaller sites such as WordPress must realise that they are now publishing – rather than technology – companies and take more responsibility for taking down extreme material.

The Home Secretary left the door open to changing the law if necessary.

But she said she would rather see an industry-wide board doing it independently, as the best people to take action are those who understand the technology and the “necessary hashtags”.

On encrypted messaging services, she told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show: “It is completely unacceptable, there should be no place for terrorists to hide.

“We need to make sure that organisations like WhatsApp, and there are plenty of others like that, don’t provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other.

“It used to be that people would steam-open envelopes or just listen in on phones when they wanted to find out what people were doing, legally, through warrantry. But on this situation we need to make sure that our intelligence services have the ability to get into situations like encrypted WhatsApp.”

Asked on Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday if she opposed end-to-end encryption, Ms Rudd said: “End-to-end encryption has a place, cyber security is really important and getting it wrong costs the economy and costs people money.

“But we also need to have a system whereby when the police have an investigation, where the security services have put forward a warrant signed off by the Home Secretary, we can get that information when a terrorist is involved.” She denied what she was describing was incompatible with end-to-end encryption.

Ms Rudd said she was calling in a “fairly long list” of relevant organisationsforameetingontheissueonThursday, including social media platforms.

Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, backed Ms Rudd’s call for messaging services to build back doors into end-to-end encryption.

Its director Rob Wainwright told BBC Sunday Politics: “That’s an inconsistency in society, it surely is, and we have to find a solution through the appropriate legislation, through perhaps the technology companies and law enforcement working maybe in a slightly more constructive way.”