The accusation relates to Facebook management’s decision to introduce end-to-end encryption
Ken McCallum, head of the British counter-intelligence service MI-5, has for the first time harshly criticized the management of Facebook, which, in fact, provides “free access” to terrorists in its social networks. He said this in relation to Facebook’s decision to introduce end-to-end encryption, The Times reported on Friday.
The implementation of such plans would, he said, block hundreds of counter-terrorism investigations by the intelligence agency. “The decisions made in the boardrooms in California are as important to our ability to do our jobs as the decisions made in Afghanistan or Syria,” McCallum said. Zuckerberg’s privacy plans for Messenger and Instagram mean that terrorists can send illegal material and plan attacks in secret, beyond law enforcement’s ability to track, he said.
McCallum stressed that he agrees with Zuckerberg that privacy is important, but pointed out that in this case “our job is to deal with one case in a million”. “If you have by default end-to-end encryption that cannot be disclosed, you are effectively presenting free access to renegades – terrorists or people who organise online child sexual abuse – some of the most egregious in our society – a free pass when they know no one can see what they are doing <…>,” the MI5 chief said.
British police and counterintelligence “are in no way seeking to create any system of total surveillance”, but need appropriate access to prevent terrorists from building bombs and radicalising others, McCallum added.