Internet giants 'ruthless moneymakers'

29 May 2017 - 09:23 By ©The Sunday Telegraph
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The UK's security minister yesterday accused internet giants of being "ruthless moneymakers" who have deceived the government over tackling terror online.

Ben Wallace said the companies' data encryption was allowing jihadist cells to emerge unnoticed.

He attacked "completely duplicitous" social media giants for flogging users' personal information to questionable companies but refusing to help terror investigations.

Wallace demanded that the firms spend more of their "billions" on automatically taking down jihadist videos radicalising UK's youth.

Wallace said: "Some of the [social media] names are actually helpful, but some of them are completely duplicitous. A lot of these companies survey how you and I live our lives online.

"They take that data and sell it around the world to anyone from [pay-day] loans to soft porn.

"But when we, the state, say we have processes and warrants and we ask for that same type of data, we get this very twisted view of: 'Ah, but that's surveillance.' My details are flogged by these firms around the world," Wallace said. "They are ruthless moneymakers."

The Conservative Party is expected to bring in so-called technical capability notices if re-elected, forcing tech giants to hand over encrypted data to an official terror investigation.

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