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Amber Rudd is set to confirm counter-terrorism laws will be updated to keep pace with online activities on the third day of Conservative conference. The tightening of the law around viewing “extremist” material is part of a review of the Government’s counterterrorism strategy after a rise in frequency of terrorist attacks in Britain this year. Ms Rudd said: "I want to make sure those who view despicable terrorist content online including jihadi websites, far right propaganda and bomb-making instructions face the full force of the law. "There is currently a gap in the law around material which is viewed or streamed from the internet without being permanently downloaded.

GETTY The Home Secretary is to announce the plans on Tuesday

"This is an increasingly common means by which material is accessed online for criminal purposes, and is a particularly prevalent means of viewing extremist material such as videos and web pages. "Changes will enable police and the security service to keep pace with modern patterns of internet use and intervene earlier in an investigation given the speed with which online radicalisation is taking place. "It is also right that the cowardly targeting of the men and women who serve our country is punished in the severest terms. "We are continuing to urgently press the internet companies to do more to stop this kind of vile material being available on their platforms in the first place."

The move will strengthen the existing offence of possessing information likely to be useful to a terrorist under section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000, so it does not only apply to downloaded or stored information. Academics, journalists and some other professionals would have a "reasonable excuse" defence for legitimate work. According to the Home Office, the updated offence will make sure that only people who repeatedly view terrorist material online are prosecuted to safeguard those who click on a link by mistake or out of curiosity. The maximum penalty will also apply to terrorists who publish information about members of the armed forces, police and intelligence services to fuel attacks.

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Home Office analysis found that over the last 12 months, ISIS supporters have published almost 67,000 tweets in English promoting their propaganda. Ms Rudd said she would continue to press internet companies to do more to prevent terrorist material being widely accessible on their platforms in the first place. She chaired a meeting of the most powerful technology companies called Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism in California this summer and is due to chair another in January 2018.

EXPRESS Ms Rudd wants to tackle jihadist websites that spread propaganda

The Home Secretary claimed that jihadis are aided by the “end-to-end” encryption on messaging sites such as WhatsApp, which makes it impossible for the Government or the technology firms to track the terrorists. WhatsApp is one of the platforms used by terrorists to communicate with each other. It is a messaging app that uses the internet rather than mobile phone signal and uses “end to end encryption,” which means the messages cannot be decoded by a third party. When asked by an audience member at Global Internet Forum if she understood how end-to-end encryption actually worked, she said: “It’s so easy to be patronised in this business.

GETTY Ms Rudd also wants to tackle encryption