LONDON: More could be done to extract intelligence from. data to help fight terrorism in the UK, said David Anderson QC, the former UK independent reviewer of terrorism legislation.
Speaking to a parliamentary committee, he said the UK government could “squeeze” more out of relevant data, such as travel data or online purchasing data.
“I suspect there is more to be done and if you look at how clever the private sector is using data aggregators, putting together everything they know about people to make credit reference scores.
“You can see there is scope for government as well to use data a little more cleverly than they do, always of course acknowledging that these sorts of activities when done by government need to be very carefully safeguarded,” he said, noting that in some cases private sector co-operation would be needed.
Anderson’s comments follow the publication of his report last December on the terrorist attacks in the UK between March and June 2017.
He had been commissioned by the government to conduct an independent assessment of MI5 and the police’s own internal reviews of the attacks in Westminster, Manchester, London Bridge and Finsbury Park.
In his report Anderson endorsed recommendations made by MI5 and counter-terrorism police that there needed to be wider intelligence sharing.
“What these reviews illuminated was that intelligence sharing is much less advanced when it comes to neighbourhood policing…(and) other authorities, local authorities, prisons, education authorities,” he told the committee on Tuesday.
He told MPs that the UK’s intelligence service MI5 had made a “big leap” in deciding “that we have got to let go of a little more” and share their intelligence more widely.
Responding to MPs’ questions, he said that while the UK government should not be allowed access to private end-to-end encrypted messages for security purposes, he said there was more that tech companies could do to help counter terrorism activities.
“End-to-end encryption is not only a fact of life, it is - on balance - a desirable fact of life… That doesn't not mean tech companies can’t do more to help government. They can - even the ones with business models based on end-to-end encryption… they could do more than they do.”
He said the advancements in technology also meant you have new sources of information coming in, citing the example of being able to track someone’s movements around a city via their mobile phone.
Anderson’s report detailed what the police and the intelligence services knew ahead of last year’s terror attacks. In the report, he concluded “learning points” had emerged, and that it was “conceivable” that the Manchester attack in particular could have been averted had the “cards fallen differently”.
The report noted that an opportunity was missed by MI5 to place the Manchester attacker Salman Abedi on “ports action” after he travelled to Libya in April 2017.
This would have triggered an alert when he returned from Libya just before the attack, and would have allowed him to be questioned and searched by counter-terrorism police at the airport.
Speaking to a parliamentary committee, he said the UK government could “squeeze” more out of relevant data, such as travel data or online purchasing data.
“I suspect there is more to be done and if you look at how clever the private sector is using data aggregators, putting together everything they know about people to make credit reference scores.
“You can see there is scope for government as well to use data a little more cleverly than they do, always of course acknowledging that these sorts of activities when done by government need to be very carefully safeguarded,” he said, noting that in some cases private sector co-operation would be needed.
Anderson’s comments follow the publication of his report last December on the terrorist attacks in the UK between March and June 2017.
He had been commissioned by the government to conduct an independent assessment of MI5 and the police’s own internal reviews of the attacks in Westminster, Manchester, London Bridge and Finsbury Park.
In his report Anderson endorsed recommendations made by MI5 and counter-terrorism police that there needed to be wider intelligence sharing.
“What these reviews illuminated was that intelligence sharing is much less advanced when it comes to neighbourhood policing…(and) other authorities, local authorities, prisons, education authorities,” he told the committee on Tuesday.
He told MPs that the UK’s intelligence service MI5 had made a “big leap” in deciding “that we have got to let go of a little more” and share their intelligence more widely.
Responding to MPs’ questions, he said that while the UK government should not be allowed access to private end-to-end encrypted messages for security purposes, he said there was more that tech companies could do to help counter terrorism activities.
“End-to-end encryption is not only a fact of life, it is - on balance - a desirable fact of life… That doesn't not mean tech companies can’t do more to help government. They can - even the ones with business models based on end-to-end encryption… they could do more than they do.”
He said the advancements in technology also meant you have new sources of information coming in, citing the example of being able to track someone’s movements around a city via their mobile phone.
Anderson’s report detailed what the police and the intelligence services knew ahead of last year’s terror attacks. In the report, he concluded “learning points” had emerged, and that it was “conceivable” that the Manchester attack in particular could have been averted had the “cards fallen differently”.
The report noted that an opportunity was missed by MI5 to place the Manchester attacker Salman Abedi on “ports action” after he travelled to Libya in April 2017.
This would have triggered an alert when he returned from Libya just before the attack, and would have allowed him to be questioned and searched by counter-terrorism police at the airport.
