Earlier this week the NSPCC published the results of a series of Freedom of Information requests it made to the police in England and Wales (so not the whole of the UK).
They asked the police how many cases they had dealt with in the past year that involved online grooming behaviour directed at a child or the distribution of child sex abuse material on either Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp. These services are all owned by one company: Facebook.
Only 32 out of 43 forces replied and of these some said they were unaware of the platform or service that was used. Let that pass for now. These types of crimes are under-reported anyway but, of the cases that were reported, among those where the platform or service was identified by the police, from a total of 9,259 instances, 22% were on Instagram, 19% were on Facebook or Facebook Messenger and 3% were on WhatsApp. That works out at 11 cases per day.
WhatsApp is already encrypted. That probably accounts for the relatively low percentage but Facebook have announced they intend to encrypt everything on all three services.
What did the NSPCC have to say bout this?
“Instead of working to protect children and make the online world they live in safer, Facebook is actively choosing to give offenders a place to hide in the shadows and risks making itself a one stop grooming shop.
“For far too long Facebook’s mantra has been to move fast and break things but these figures provide a clear snapshot of the thousands of child sex crimes that could go undetected if they push ahead with their plans unchecked.
“If Facebook fails to guarantee encryption won’t be detrimental to children’s safety, the next Government must make clear they will face tough consequences from day one for breaching their Duty of Care.”
I could hardly have put it better myself.
Desiderata 