Aust takes encryption worries to Five Eyes – News.com.au – NEWS.com.au

Australia will be pushing the United States, UK and its other intelligence allies on the need to crack down on encrypted technology in the fight against terrorism.

The federal government has listed the issue as its priority agenda item for a meeting of the Five Eyes partners in Canada at the end of June.

Attorney-General George Brandis said it had become one of the biggest challenges facing law enforcement and security agencies worldwide.

"If those encrypted communications contain information which is necessary to a prosecution, an intelligence task like keeping a terrorism suspect under appropriate surveillance, then there does need to be a level of co-operation from the carriage services providers," Senator Brandis told Sky News on Tuesday.

Whether it be gaining access through telcos or internet giants Facebook and Google, it was important law enforcement could monitor people of concern.

"There is a corporate social responsibility issue here, there is an evidentiary issue here as well," he said.

It follows comments by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who believes there is too much tolerance of extremist material online.

He met with telcos, Facebook and others last week in Canberra as part of the federal government's cyber security agenda.

"It is a very high priority of my government," Mr Turnbull told reporters.

Labor leader Bill Shorten on Tuesday joined calls for global internet giants to play a greater role in stamping out terrorist propaganda online.

He said extremism was unacceptable both on Australia's streets and on the internet, which was being used to distribute evil messages.

"We need to make it clear that terrorists have nowhere to hide on our streets, in the air, in their countries and also on the internet," he told reporters in Brisbane.

"It is no good being in a 21st century fight if you are using 20th century weapons."

Facebook, Twitter and Google insist they are taking the issue seriously.

Facebook said it does not allow groups or people who engage in terrorist activity, or posts that express support for terrorism.

"Using a combination of technology and human review, we're working aggressively to remove terrorist content from our platform as soon as we become aware of it," director of policy Simon Milner said in a statement.

"If we become aware of an emergency involving imminent harm to someone's safety, we notify law enforcement."

A YouTube spokeswoman told AAP it, too, has clear policies prohibiting terrorist recruitment and content intending to incite violence, and quickly removes flagged videos in violation.

It also terminates accounts run by terrorist organisations or those that repeatedly breach their rules.

Twitter's UK head of public policy Nick Pickles said terrorist content had no place on Twitter and the company had a systematic approach to removing such material.

"We will never stop working to stay one step ahead and will continue to engage with our partners across industry, government, civil society and academia," he said in a statement.

In the six months to December last year, Twitter suspended 376,890 accounts in relation to the promotion of terrorism.

Nearly three-quarters of those were picked up by the company's spam-fighting tools, while two per cent were done at the request of governments.

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