Is it necessary to limit encryption in order to prevent child abuse?
He oversees a team of 21 analysts in Cambridge who locate, identify and remove child sexual abuse material (CSAM) from the internet.
It manually reviews online reports of suspected criminal content sent in by the public. Mr Hughes sees upsetting material every day.
When content is verified, analysts create unique "digital fingerprints" of each photo or video, then send it to law enforcement and tech firms. They also search for material online.
Reports jumped during the pandemic, he says: "Over the recent May bank holiday weekend, we had more than 2,000 reports."
Police say more child predators can now be found on messaging apps, rather than on the dark web. Many don't even encrypt their web traffic.
Many authorities are concerned that Facebook wants to introduce end-to-end encryption on messages sent over Messenger and Instagram Direct.
End-to-end encryption is a privacy feature that makes it impossible for anyone except the sender and recipient to read messages sent online.
