UK: PM Sunak announces new tech partnership to stop illegal migration

London [UK], August 7 : The United Kingdom's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that there will be a voluntary partnership between social media companies and the government to tackle the information, which criminals share on illegal Channel crossings, that was being shared on the online space. 
In the statement released by the UK government on Sunday, PM Sunak said, "To stop the boats, we have to tackle the business model of vile people smugglers at the source. That means clamping down on their attempts to lure people into making these illegal crossings and profit from putting lives at risk."
"This new commitment from tech firms will see us redouble our efforts to fight back against these criminals, working together to shut down their vile trade," he added. 
"This move came as the new figures show the government continues to make progress on the Prime Minister’s plan to stop the boats: crossings remain down on last year, the legacy asylum backlog has been reduced by a third since December 2022, and enforced returns of people with no right to be in the UK are at their highest level since 2019," the statement read. 
While figures from the National Crime Agency show that over 90 per cent of online content linked to people smuggling is taken down when social media companies are notified, the partnership between tech firms and the government will drive forward efforts to clamp down on the tactics being used by criminal gangs who use the internet to lure people into paying for crossings, as per the statement.
This content can include discount offers for groups of people, free spaces for children, offers of false documents and false claims of safe passage – targeting vulnerable people for profit and putting people’s lives at risk through dangerous and illegal journeys.
Talking about this new move, Home Secretary Suella Braverman said, "Heartless people smugglers are using social media to promote their despicable services and charge people thousands of pounds to make the illegal journey into the UK in unsafe boats. They must not succeed."
"This strengthened collaboration between the National Crime Agency, government and social media companies will ensure content promoting dangerous and illegal Channel crossings doesn’t see the light of day," she further added. 
This new partnership will build on the close work already in place between the government and social media companies and includes a range of commitments to explore increased collaboration, according to the statement.
Under this initiative, social media companies will look to increase cooperation with the National Crime Agency to find and remove criminal content and step up the sharing of best practices both across the industry and with law enforcement.
The voluntary partnership also includes a commitment to explore ways to step up efforts to redirect people away from this content when they come across it online.
This approach is already widely being used successfully by platforms, for example around harmful content promoting extremism or eating disorders, where people are presented with alternative messages to displace, rebut or undermine the damaging content they searched for – diverting them away from harmful messaging and misinformation, as per the statement.
Alongside the partnership, the government will also set up a new centre led by the National Crime Agency and Home Office to increase the capacity and capability of law enforcement to identify this content on social media platforms.
The governmnet is also planning to host a ‘hackathon’ event with industry experts in order to develop innovative new tools which will better detect people smugglers’ publicly available content online, to help social media companies take it down more quickly. It will also help in cutting the potential of new technology such as AI to clamp down on criminals’ content.