WATCHING streamed terror content on the web will become a criminal offence under a new crackdown unveiled today.

In the latest crackdown against IS, Home Secretary Amber Rudd will close a loophole that allows people to freely watch vile propaganda.

2 Amber Rudd is to close the loophole which allows people to openly watch propaganda Credit: Alamy Live News

Current laws only forbid downloading the material. But senior officials believe they can now identify cases where people watch without first transferring the footage to their own PC.

The move comes after tech giants were last night urged to "face up" to their moral responsibility to boot ISIS off the internet in a furious blast from Mrs Rudd.

She said the likes of Google had run out of excuses and said companies were even developing encrypted software that was making it HARDER for spooks to tackle the terror threat.

The blast came as the Government's former terror chief David Anderson QC warned that Governments were in an "arms race" with terrorists online.

Speaking at a fringe event at the Tory conference Ms Rudd said: "There have been 12 attempted terror plots in the past year, of which 5 have got through.

"There is a whole new level of terrorist activity that we are seeing.

2 The Home Secretary called the latest terrorism figures a 'whole new level' Credit: Rex Features

"The tech giants needs to step up and do more, take a moral responsibility for the fact their platforms are being used in this way."

She added: "Businesses are developing models that keep security services at bay and that is unacceptable."

Sky's chief operating officer Andrew Griffith said the public would find it hard to believe the biggest tech giants were sitting on $600 billion - 17 times the UK's defence budget - but couldn't develop software that blocked IS material from being uploaded online.

He said: "If they can develop cars that can drive down streets they have the capability to spot an IS flag."