Web firms ‘in denial’ over networks’ role in terror

The new head of Britain’s electronic eavesdropping agency has accused internet firms of being "in denial" over the role their networks play in terrorism and demanded they open themselves up more to intelligence services.

GCHQ director Robert Hannigan said they had become the “command-and-control networks of choice” for a new generation of web-savvy criminals and extremists, such as Islamic State jihadists.

Better arrangements had to be developed to allow security and intelligence agencies to police online traffic, he said in an article for the Financial Times, warning firms that their users did not want their social networks used “to facilitate murder or child abuse”.

“GCHQ and its sister agencies, MI5 and the Secret Intelligence Service, cannot tackle these challenges at scale without greater support from the private sector, including the largest US technology companies which dominate the web,” Hannigan wrote.

“They aspire to be neutral conduits of data and to sit outside or above politics. But increasingly, their services not only host the material of violent extremism or child exploitation, but are the routes for the facilitation of crime and terrorism.

“If they are to meet this challenge, it means coming up with better arrangements for facilitating lawful investigation than we have now.”

The question of state surveillance of communications was thrust under the spotlight by the exposure by US whistleblower Edward Snowden of secret mass data collection programmes run by US and UK authorities. Hannigan conceded GCHQ had to “show how we are accountable for the data we use to protect people”.

“But privacy has never been an absolute right,” said Hannigan.

“To those of us who have to tackle the depressing end of human behaviour on the internet, it can seem that some technology companies are in denial about its misuse.

“I suspect most ordinary users of the internet are ahead of them: they do not want the media platforms they use with their friends and families to facilitate murder or child abuse.”

Emma Carr, director of Big Brother Watch, said: “It is wholly wrong to state that internet companies are failing to assist in investigations. The Government and agencies have consistently failed to provide evidence that internet companies are being actively obstructive.

“These companies have consistently proved through their own transparency reports that they help the intelligence agencies when it is appropriate for them to do so, which is in the vast majority of cases.”