CLUELESS Facebook last night admitted they do not know how to take down sick child abuse images when they bring in encryption.
The Silicon Valley giant has enraged cops and governments worldwide by vowing to make all messages on its platforms secret.
It will mean only the sender and recipient can see what’s in Messenger and Instagram direct messages.
Monika Bickert, Facebook’s head of counter-terrorism, confessed the company can no longer see messages containing child abuse.
And she revealed they have still not come up with a plan to keep kids safe online.
Her comments to the culture select committee horrified MPs who lashed the firm for having no idea how they will protect youngsters.
Grilling the Facebook boss, Labour MP Yvette Cooper demanded to know: “So once they are end to end encrypted, if an offender uses it to send an image of a child being sexually abused or being raped, what will you be able to do about it?”
Ms Bickert admitted: “I don’t have the answers for you on that yet. We are still in the consultative phase.
“These are early days for us. We can keep you in the loop.” She said Facebook still plans to “go ahead with end to end encryption” but is still developing “how it looks”.
She added: “It is true we will not be able to see content unless it’s reported to us.
“We are looking at how we can build this product with those concerns in mind.
“I can’t give you answers on how we are likely to build this product.” Clearly shocked, Ms Cooper said the National Crime Agency had raised serious concerns that encryption will help perverts hide their crimes.
And she demanded the tech giant hurry up and come up with a real plan to protect vulnerable kids.
She fumed: “I don’t know if you recognise quite how serious it sounds that you have made a decision to go ahead with something and you don’t seem to have any idea of how you are going to solve this massive problem about how to protect children.” The Home Office warned late last year the plan will give free rein to criminals online.
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