Encrypted messaging services should not allow terrorists to hide, Rudd says

Home Secretary Amber Rudd has said that encrypted messaging services such as WhatsApp should not offer terrorists a place to hide. Rudd made the comment in an interview with BBC One's Andrew Marr Show, adding that intelligence services must have access to such services, after it was revealed that Westminster attacker Khalid Masood used the app before launching offence which killed four people. Rudd said: "It is completely unacceptable, there should be no place for terrorists to hide. "We need to make sure that organisations like WhatsApp, and there are plenty of others like that, don't provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other. "It used to be that people would steam open envelopes or just listen in on phones when they wanted to find out what people were doing, legally, through warranty. "But on this situation we need to make sure that our intelligence services have the ability to get into situations like encrypted WhatsApp.” Rudd added: "I would ask Tim Cook to think again about other ways of helping us work out how we can get into the situations like WhatsApp on the Apple phone." Rob Wainwright, Europol director, agreed: "I would agree something has to be done to make sure that we can apply a more consistent form of interception of communication in all parts of the way in which terrorists invade our lives.” A spokeswoman for WhatsApp has said it was ‘horrified at the attack’ and was co-operating with the investigation.