Tech companies are bringing regulation on themselves by using encryption, warns UK's top police watchdog

The encryption technology that keeps smartphone users’ private messages safe could be regulated by the government because it is sometimes used by terrorists, the senior inspector overseeing the UK’s police forces has claimed.

Firms responsible for instant messaging apps are “making life easier for terrorists, paedophiles and organised criminals” while frustrating law enforcement by locking out the police, HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary said.

Sir Thomas Winsor warned that regulation might become necessary to ensure officers can access information hidden by end-to-end encryption and device passwords.

“The more the technology companies devise means of shielding information from legitimate law enforcement, usually backed by a judicial warrant, the more they move themselves to be susceptible to regulation,” he told journalists.

“It is unsustainable for properly operating judicial processes and law enforcement to be frustrated in the investigation of offences.”

Encryption, which converts messages into unreadable code, has come under increasing focus in the wake of a wave of global terror attacks.

The Westminster attacker Khalid Masood used the encrypted messaging service WhatsApp to send a last message from behind the wheel, while Isis has evaded international crackdowns by putting out its gory propaganda and communicating with members on Telegram.

Government and law enforcement officials have repeatedly argued that encryption must be weakened, so that messages can be read as they are sent between people. But technology companies and privacy activists have, equally often, pointed out that would also make communications far less secure – allowing them to be read by other governments and malicious hackers.

Encryption is used to keep data secure across the internet, protecting not only private messages but internet banking and other sensitive information. Without it, communications sent by government and military officials could be intercepted as they are sent, theoretically allowing anyone to read them as they are delivered.

Sir Thomas said unbreakable smartphone password protections were also “unacceptable”, citing the legal battle between the FBI and Apple over accessing the iPhone used by an Isis-inspired mass shooter in San Diego.

“If the giants of that world continue to devise ways to frustrate law enforcement then public opinion won’t tolerate it,” he added.

“I think the more people realise the dangerous potential of information which is unjustifiably concealed from law enforcement, be it child abuse, terrorism or serious organised crime, the more they will realise that access to that information is not just desirable, it is necessary.”

Asked about privacy and public discomfort over the prospect of police accessing private information held on phones, Sir Thomas said it would be subject to judicial oversight.

In his annual State of Policing in England and Wales report, he said the huge amount of digital data held on phones was causing issues elsewhere in the criminal justice system and driving a wave of high-profile disclosure scandals.

Sir Thomas said the current use of new technology that could speed up investigations was patchy across forces and leaving police “far behind where the criminals are”, amid efforts to update IT systems and databases.

He called on British police to invest in artificial intelligence to examine phone data, suggesting that the practice should be organised on a regional or national basis rather than by individual forces.

It came after a string of cases collapsed after messages were found by defence lawyers – on devices already examined by police – proving the defendants’ innocence, while a man was released from prison four years after being wrongfully convicted of rape.

“Too many police officers don’t understand the disclosure rules and that can lead a perfectly sound case to collapse, an innocent person going through hell or a going to jail,” Sir Thomas warned, calling for improved training.

“It is important that all in the criminal justice system realise it is there to establish the truth, not just to be a gladiatorial battle where winning is all that counts.”

Resources have been cited as a driver of disclosure issues by both police and lawyers, and forces have been putting pressure on the government for increased funding to deal with a range of mounting demands.

Sir Thomas would not be drawn on whether police forces have enough money to protect the public, but acknowledged a gap between what they are required to do and the resources to do it.

Weeks after Sajid Javid, the new home secretary, pledged to prioritise police funding in an upcoming government spending review, the inspector added: “It’s not a linear relationship between money, efficiency and the quality of the output – there are many factors at work.”

The 43 police forces in England and Wales are currently drawing up their first-ever “force management statements”, which require chief constables to record current and future demand, and their ability to meet it.

“It is not possible to make sound judgements about how use resources if you do not know your demand,” Sir Thomas said.

“However, some forces are still failing to assess and plan for future demand capability properly and efficiently. Failing to plan properly will compromise public safety.

“In many cases, it is troubling how little forces know about demand – particularly demand that comes from hidden crime, such as so-called honour-based violence and modern slavery.”

HM Inspectorate of Constabulary’s annual report found that the dedication of over-stretched police officers was masking a dangerous failure by leaders to deal with current and future crime.

It warned that vulnerable people were being put at risk of serious harm by the “inappropriate” management of demand.

Sir Thomas said the effectiveness of policing is broadly improving despite financial austerity and the rise of crime but long-running issues were becoming more urgent.

“The principal of these is the failure to plan properly, compromising public safety and relying on officers’ desire to ‘get the job done’,” he added. “This has allowed too slow and too modest a scale of change that is urgently needed.”

Almost a quarter of forces are not meeting enough of their demand or are managing it inappropriately, the report found.

“Some we found that staff holding thousands of emergency calls in queues, largely because officers were not available to respond to them,” it said, adding that some officers were not reassessing the threat after long delays.

Almost all forces in England and Wales are investigating some crimes over the telephone, rather than sending officers in person, and HMIC found that one third were poor quality and almost half were not supervised properly.

“They can give a prompt and efficient service but forces must not use as simply a cheap way of dealing with a case,” the report said.

Sir Thomas attacked wider public services for allowing a crisis in mental health services for children and young people to worsen serious crime, amid a nationwide rise in stabbings.

“This is mainly the job of others such as health, education and social services ... there are many people in the criminal justice system who should not be there,” he added.

“In too many cases services wait until the child is in crisis before anything is done, and that inevitably brings pressure on police and diverts their pressure and resources to deal with problems that should not have been allowed to develop to that stage in the first place.”

He also called for officers and staff to be given proper support and rest days to protect their welfare and the quality of their work.