UK's Rudd meeting tech chiefs to discuss encryption

Home Secretary Amber Rudd was meeting with tech firm representatives on Thursday in an attempt to get them to do more to tackle terrorism, a week after an attack in London killed four people.

Rudd was scheduled to meet Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook. She has been publicly critical of their use of encryption on message applications which puts the content out of police reach.

The Metropolitan Police said that Khalid Masood, who mowed down three people in a car on Westminster Bridge last week and then stabbed a policeman to death before being shot dead himself, had sent a message via WhatsApp before he started his attack.

WhatsApp messages are encrypted at origin and destination and can only be accessed via the users' phones.

However, Rudd has been accused of not grasping the subject, with industry observers claiming that any attempt to introduce a "backdoor" to applications increased access to vulnerabilities from hackers on crucial private data such as online bank details.

One industry expert, who declined to be named, told Digital Look that Rudd's suggestion was a recipe for more criminal activity, not less.

"Hackers and other attackers look for any weakness they can find, and a back door is a significant weakness that can and will be exploited for ill-gotten gain," he said.

"The last thing the home secretary should want to deal with is the private details of millions of Britons being circulated among criminals around the world, and yet bizarrely she is setting herself up for that precise situation. An successful attack on a back door is a case of when, not if."

Rudd said on Sunday that there should be "no place for terrorists to hide.”

“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.”