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THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT wants its security services to have access to encrypted messaging applications such as WhatsApp, after it was revealed it was used by the killer behind the parliament attack.
Khalid Masood, the 52-year-old Briton who killed four people before being shot dead in a rampage in Westminster on Wednesday, reportedly used the Facebook-owned service moments before the assault.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd told Sky News today that it was “completely unacceptable” that police and security services had not been able to crack the heavily encrypted service.
“You can’t have a situation where you have terrorists talking to each other – where this terrorist sent a WhatsApp message – and it can’t be accessed,” she said.
Police said Saturday that they still do not know why Masood, a Muslim convert with a violent criminal past, carried out the attack and said it was likely that he acted alone, despite a claim by the Islamic State group.
“There should be no place for terrorists to hide,” Rudd said in a separate interview with the BBC.
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.
She said end-to-end encryption was vital to cyber security, to ensure that business, banking and other transactions were safe – but said it must also be accessible.
“It’s not incompatible. You can have a system whereby they can build it so that we can have access to it when it is absolutely necessary,” she told Sky News.
Rudd said she did not yet intend to force the industry’s hand with new legislation, but would meet key players on Thursday to discuss this issue, as well as the “constant battle” against extremist videos posted online.
“The best people – who understand the technology, who understand the necessary hashtags – to stop this stuff even being put up, not just taking it down, are going to be them,” she told the BBC.
US authorities last year fought a legal battle with tech giant Apple to get it to unlock a smartphone used by the perpetrator of a terror attack in California.
The FBI’s own experts ended up breaking into the device.
Social media giants are also coming under pressure over extremist content posted on their sites.
Germany this month proposed fining social networks such as Facebook if they fail to wipe illegal hate speech from their sites.
Meanwhile Google has faced a boycott by companies whose adverts appeared alongside extremist content on its internet platforms, particularly its video-sharing site YouTube.
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I took a trip to the Saltee Islands earlier in the year. The boat leaves Kilmore Quay for the islands everyday and is very busy in Summer months. The skipper/owner of the boat refused point blank to give me a life jacket – he keeps them in a box which looked padlocked to me (I could be wrong about the padlock) and said he would hand them out “if there is an emergency”. I was horrified but apparently he is within his rights – he is only obliged to carry jackets for everyone on board but is not obliged to hand them out. Despite a very rough crossing with high swells we travelled to and from the Saltees without jackets. What’s the point in all this “wear your lifejacket” campaign when the law allows someone to run a scheduled service for passengers and refuse them a jacket???
I would not get on that boat!
We shouldn’t have Deborah!! – but I was with famly and we didn’t want them to miss out on the trip after driving a long way to get there and looking forward to the day. The other passengers on the boat (some foreign, some Irish) felt the same. So we all crossed our fingers and gritted our teeth. But you’re right – if everyone refused to go ahead with the trip it might lead to a change of attitude on behalf of the skipper. It’s a very popular trip and as far as I know he is the only operator on the route.
Anyone even thinking about getting in a boat without one needs their head looked at, just as important as a car seat belt
or a helmet on a bike
Anyone that falls into Irish Waters, would it not work in the English Channel.
Dude on the left looks like he never took a swimming lesson in his entire life.
. . . and the guy on the right looks like he’s in about 2ft of water!
We have boats for years, no one gets on without a life jacket, end of story
If you fall in wearing trousers, you can turn it into a life jacket.
I suppose pulling up alongside them in your boat singing the safe cross code to them wouldn’t go down too well?
Check out the RNLI Respect the water campaign on you tube. It really drives the message home.
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