Five Eyes closes on tech child sex deal

Global ­security allies to finalise an agreement to force tech giants to help stop abuse live streaming.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. Picture: AAP

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton will meet security ­ministers from the Five Eyes ­intelligence alliance in Wash­ington on Thursday, in a bid to finalise a global agreement that would force Facebook and Google to help shut down live streaming and sharing of child sex abuse.

The top-level forum to be hosted at the White House will coincide with the introduction of a bill today to the Australian parliament that would enact mirror laws with the US CLOUD Act.

This would allow reciprocal rights for both US and Aust­ralian security agencies to issue warrants for data held offshore by cloud providers in hunting down terrorists and child sex networks.

Mr Dutton has led a campaign­ with US Attorney-­General William Barr and Britain’s Home Affairs secretary Priti Patel to force the tech companies and online platforms to co-operate with security agencies in stopping the viewing and live streaming of child sex ­material.

At the meeting it is hoped that a set of landmark “voluntary principles” will be agreed on that will establish systems for online companies to deal with criminal use of their platforms. They will include the threat of forcing the industry to act through legislation if required.

Mr Dutton told The Aust­ralian before leaving for Washington that the agreement, if reached, would reflect the ­government’s expectations of the tech industry.

“Nothing represents the darkest corners of the internet like child sexual abuse,” the Home Affairs Minister said.

“It is here the most unspeakable crimes — the torture of ­toddlers, the rape of children and the sexualisation of minors — occur. But speak about them we must, because giving a voice to the profound and enduring harm ­experienced by the victims and survivors of these crimes is critical to stopping them from happening to just one more child.

“When it comes to tackling child abuse committed on online platforms and services, the digital industry has a vital role to play.

“The voluntary principles will help industry optimise these ­efforts. They reflect governments’ expectations of digital industry, and are scalable and practical to implement across various platform­s — from search engines to gaming services to social media networking sites.”

The Five Eyes alliance is a ­security and intelligence-sharing ­coalition between Australia, the US, Britain, Canada and New ­Zealand. It is regarded as the most ­expansive global security agreement.

Mr Dutton has been vocal in his condemnation of the tech giants — Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Roblox, Snap and Twitter — for dragging the chain and rolling out ever more sophisticated encryption that would keep terrorists and child-traffickers hidden from law-enforcement agencies.

At a meeting of the Five Eyes Ministerial Council in Britain in July last year, tech companies were issued a veiled threat that the governments of the alliance were prepared to use legislative means to “compel” the companies.

It was then agreed that a set of voluntary principles be established that would involve a ­framework and systems allowing tech companies to help shut down the sharing of child abuse material and live streaming of terrorist ­attacks — such as the Christchurch massacre — on their ­platforms.

The White House roundtable forum will hear from victims and survivors of online child sex abuse.

Industry representatives will also attend.