A front-page investigation in The Daily Telegraph revealed that Facebook reported 6.9 million fewer child sexual abuse incidents to global authorities in 2024 than the year before.
A 40% drop. The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has blamed the decline on Facebook’s rollout of end-to-end encryption, which it says has obstructed efforts to detect, investigate and prosecute online abusers.
Speaking as a member of the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Paul Waugh said:
“These figures are shocking but not surprising. Meta was warned by many, including myself, that end-to-end encryption of Facebook messages would make it much harder to detect the activity of paedophiles and other sex offenders.
Meta appeared blithely dismissive when I raised this with them during our hearing in Parliament. Ofcom last week told me the tech industry’s solutions were not good enough, and they’re right. Our children cannot wait for the tech firms to find a conscience. They should never have allowed this move without introducing other safeguards for our security agencies and police.”
He continued:
“Twenty years ago, someone like Gary Glitter had to go to the other side of the world to prey on children. Someone like Jeffrey Epstein had to create his own private paedophile island.
Now, these monsters—all they have to do is go on to set up a group on Facebook Messenger.”
The National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) reported similar declines across other major platforms including X (formerly Twitter), Google, Discord, and Microsoft. Its chief executive, Michelle DeLaune, warned:
“When a platform voluntarily chooses to blind itself to child sexual exploitation by disabling its ability to detect and report abuse, it is not just losing a report – it is potentially losing a child.”
Mr Waugh has pledged to keep raising the issue in Parliament and push for stricter requirements on tech companies under the Online Safety Act to ensure that law enforcement can continue protecting vulnerable children.
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