Victims should 'sue technology giants for their abuses', senior police officer suggests

Traffickers, heads of gangs and enslavers operating with near impunity online, Sean Sawyer suggets

The internet is a now a “safe space for organised crime” and victims should sue technology giants for their abuses, according to one of Britain’s most senior police officers.

Shaun Sawyer, chief constable of Devon and Cornwall police (CC) and national policing lead for modern slavery and human trafficking, suggsted traffickers, the heads of gangs and enslavers were able to use social media platforms like Facebook which are protected by “liberal” internet laws.

The sites allowed them to function with near impunity, he suggested.

“There has been pushback of ‘Oh, that is the job of the police’. Well, no, you regulate yourself," he told The Sunday Times.

He said: “Victims now have a voice. The law now recognises that and the current legislation could be defunct. It’s a new world. Children are being raped online and the internet giants say ‘Oh, we couldn’t find it’. Well maybe you weren’t looking hard enough.”

He added that a time may come where in the absence of legislation, someone will say: "No, this is such a fundamental breach of human rights and you are not compliant with legislation, no matter who it is written by."

Tech firms were "very good at technical solutions", he said, adding: "Their algorithms should be able to spot regular visitors, every contact leaves a trace, they have all the IP addresses. They know how to do that, and to proactively share information with law enforcement. It is no different to when I was a sergeant in Oxford Street working with shop security guards who gave me CCTV images.”

In December, the United Nations’ migration agency called on social media platforms to do more to stop people smugglers using their services to lure West African migrants to Libya where they can be detained, tortured, enslaved and killed.

A report published by the Council of Europe last week, revealed labour trafficking and exploitation is on the rise within Europe.

The report found that the number of identified victims of labour trafficking has risen in every European nation which has been monitored twice by the Council of Europe.

Commenting on those findings, Siobhan Mullally, president of the Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA), said: “Our monitoring shows that more and more people are being trafficked to work in awful conditions in Europe, both within and across national borders.

“Victims are often reluctant to come forward as they may fear deportation or retaliation from criminal trafficking networks.”

Ms Mullally added: “Prosecutions and convictions of the perpetrators are also very rare."