London: Messaging services like WhatsApp and Snapchat may face a ban in Britain as Prime Minister David Cameron vowed to introduce a slew of legislations to deny terrorists a “safe space” to communicate online in the aftermath of a series of terror attacks in France.
The proposed legislation would provide a new legal framework that will authorise British intelligence agencies to crack the communications of terror suspects if there was specific intelligence of an imminent attack.
Cameron asked, “Are we going to allow a means of communications where it simply is not possible to do that?” He responded by saying: “no, we must not.”
If he wins the election for a second term, Cameron said he would increase the authorities’ power to access both the details of communications and their content. He also said the recent attacks in Paris showed the need for such a move.
Speaking at an event in the East Midlands, Cameron said he recognised such powers were “very intrusive” but he believed that they were justified to counter the growing threat to the UK, as long as proper legal safeguards were in place.
Several messaging services like, Snapchat, Apple’s iMessage, WhatsApp and others, encrypt messages sent through their applications.
Cameron delivered his remarks on the same day the US President Barack Obama announced plans for new legislation that would give the Americans more control over their data online.
A Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, Obama proposed, would allow consumers to decide what pieces of their personal data are collected by companies and decide how the data is used.
(With ANI inputs)