‘Safe room for terrorists’: ASIO warns big tech on encryption

Federal intelligence and law enforcement chiefs will slam defiant social media giants for inflaming social division and demand access to encrypted systems that allow terrorists, violent extremists and child abusers to operate with impunity.

Australian Security Intelligence Organisation director-general Mike Burgess, who will appear at the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday alongside Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw, will also warn that secret platforms were already being used by extremists to share “vile” propaganda, discuss weapon making and how to provoke a race war.