David Cameron has issued a plea to the US internet giants to accept they have a social responsibility to help fight terrorism by allowing Britain’s intelligence agencies access to the data and content of online communications between terror suspects.

Speaking in Washington as he began two days of talks with Barack Obama, the UK prime minister reinforced his message by saying that access to communications data or actual intercepts have been vital in preventing attacks, specifically mentioning that a plot to murder police officers had been thwarted.

In an interview with ITV News, the PM said he would ask the American president to step up pressure on web companies such as Facebook and Twitter to do more to co-operate with the intelligence agencies as they seek to track terror suspects.

Cameron spoke earlier this week of a need to ensure there was no “safe space” for terrorists when he outlined plans to create a new legal framework to allow intelligence agencies to break into encrypted communications between terror suspects.

The prime minister said of internet companies: “They need to work with us. They need also to demonstrate, which they do, that they have a social responsibility to fight the battle against terrorism. We shouldn’t allow safe spaces for traits to communicate. That’s a huge challenge but that’s certainly the right principle.

“Of course people want privacy in their communications. Nobody wants to listen to the phone calls or read the emails of people as they go about their daily lives.”

The prime minister added that the agencies had been successful in thwarting terror attacks but they needed new powers to keep pace with changing technology.

He said: “Lots of attacks have been prevented. We’ve had, since I’ve been prime minister, a major attack stopped every year. In the last few months … the potential murders of police officers have been spotted. And on many occasions either communications data – who was calling who from where and when – has been vital or an intercept itself has been vital.”

The bilateral talks have also been prompted by recent cyber-attacks by hostile states and hackers and came as the two leaders announced a rolling programme of transatlantic cyber “war games” to be conducted by British and US intelligence agencies to test their resilience in the face of mounting global cyber-attacks.

Cameron told the BBC’s Today programme: “This cyber-security and cyber-attacks is one of the biggest modern threats that we face. Eight out of 10 large companies in Britain have had some sort of cyber-attack against them. Britain and America working together – we have got hugely [capable] security defences and the expertise – and that is why we should combine and set up cyber cells on both sides of the Atlantic to share information, not only to work out how we best protect ourselves but create a system where hostile states and hostile organisations know they should not try to attack us.”

He said it was time to step up the efforts. “It is not just about protecting companies, it is about protecting people’s data, people’s finances. These cyber-attacks can have real consequences for people’s finances.”

Cameron added: “Britain and America face the same challenge. We need in extremis to be able to interrupt the contact between terrorists, whether they are using fixed phones, mobile phones or the internet, and we need to work with the internet companies – we have good relations with them – to make sure we get people safe so it is a conversation to have with the president but a conversation we both need to have with the companies concerned”.

Cameron and Obama, who began two days of talks over dinner at the White House on Thursday night, will announce on Friday that as a first step a simulated attack will be targeted later in the year at banks in the City of London and Wall Street.



The “war game” against the financial sector, which will be carried out in cooperation with the Bank of England and other financial institutions, will be coordinated by a new joint “cyber-cell” that will be established by the two leaders to share information.

Agents from GCHQ and MI5 on the UK side and the US’s National Security Agency and FBI are already working in the US division of the cell. This will be matched by a cyber-cell in the UK.

The joint announcement will be made by the president and the prime minister, who is the first European leader to meet Obama since the gun attacks in Paris last week, as they finalise their talks at the White House on Friday. The White House and Downing Street have placed the threat of Islamist extremists in Syria, Iraq and in Europe and the dangers posed by cyber-warfare – both from criminals and states – at the top of the agenda for their talks.

Cameron, who is delighted that Obama has offered him priceless pre-election pictures at the White House, has agreed that their first announcement will cover one of the main themes of Obama’s penultimate state of the union address next week.

The president this week spoke of the “urgent and growing danger” posed by cyber-attacks, which was starkly illustrated by the attack on Sony Pictures.