Facebook is now danger to children, parents told

Parents have been warned by a British crime agency about allowing children on Facebook after a decision to introduce encrypted messaging.

Britain’s National Crime Agency estimates that 92 per cent of the referrals it receives from Facebook and 85 per cent of those from Instagram will no longer be passed on to police. Picture: AFP

Parents have been warned by Britain’s National Crime Agency about allowing children on Facebook after Meta’s decision to introduce encrypted messaging raised concerns about their safety.

The decision was described by one minister as “morally reprehensible” and the agency believes that it will mean police being alerted to thousands fewer cases of child abuse each year.

It estimates that 92 per cent of the referrals it receives from Facebook and 85 per cent of those from Instagram will no longer be passed on to police.

Last week Meta, which owns both platforms, decided to encrypt its messenger service, meaning the company can no longer see what its users are sharing with each other. The agency said the move would allow child abusers to groom children and paedophiles to share sexual images of children.

Chris Philp, the Policing Minister, said: “Meta’s decision is grossly irresponsible and will prevent thousands of paedophiles from being arrested. It is morally reprehensible Meta is putting profit before protecting children from predatory sexual abusers. It should reverse this terrible decision immediately.”

Rob Jones, director-general of operations for the agency, said that it had lobbied the company not to make the change and believed the decision was based on “profitability”.

He said that he would advise parents to “think very carefully” about allowing children on the platform.

“The net impact is that the platform is not as safe as it was for children because nobody knows what’s going on in there. Children are masquerading as adults because there’s no effective age verification and paedophiles are masquerading as children to establish relationships and groom potential victims.”

Graeme Biggar, director-general of the agency, said: “We arrest 800 people a month [regarding child abuse] and safeguard 1200 children a month. We are not convinced that the measures they are planning to put in place will provide anything like the protection of previous arrangements. Meta platforms are less safe for children than they were.”

The NSPCC has previously accused Mark Zuckerberg’s company of “choosing to turn a blind eye to crimes against children” by going ahead with encryption. “This flies in the face of the priority the public attaches to basic child safety online,” Sir Peter Wanless, the chief executive, said.

End-to-end encryption was a sticking point as the government’s Online Safety Bill made its way through parliament this year. WhatsApp, also owned by Meta, was one of several platforms that threatened to pull out of Britain if a government agency was given power effectively to ban such encryption.

A spokesman for Meta said that encryption kept people safe from hackers, fraudsters and other criminals and that it had developed “robust safety measures” to prevent, detect and combat abuse while maintaining security.

They included restricting over-19s from messaging teenagers who did not follow them, the spokesman said, adding that Meta expected to keep providing more reports to the police than its peers.

The Times