Home Secretary calls secure messages a «place to hide» for terrorists
Home Secretary Amber Rudd has insisted UK spy agencies should be allowed access to encrypted messaging services, after it came to light that the terrorist responsible for last week’s Westminster attack, Khalid Masood, used the free messaging service two minutes before he killed four people.
Rudd said it was «completely unacceptable» that groups such as Isis had a «place to hide» because of WhatsApp’s security measures to stop people hacking into the communication platform.
“It is completely unacceptable, there should be no place for terrorists to hide,” Judd told the BBC ’s Andrew Marr Show. “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.”
WhatsApp implemented end-to-end encryption for all forms of communication on its platform last April. Other communication platforms like Signal also offer fully encrypted communications, meaning even the companies themselves can’t read people’s messages.
She claimed that the information held in the messages to and from the attacker were most probably vital to the investigation, but WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption means it’s unlikely they’ll ever be released to security organisations following Apple’s refusal to allow US security agents access to a terrorist’s iPhone last year.
