Federal police have been give the authority to take control of paedophiles’ social media accounts without asking for permission, under the new Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill.

While some online privacy advocates have raised concerns about the reach of the new police powers, AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw assured the laws will be used “responsibly” to help his officers track down thousands more predators.

“They have prolific networks; some of these networks are up to 40,000 paedophiles globally on these servers, and a lot of them are Australians,” he told Ray Hadley.

“We’re the third biggest, sadly, global consumer of child exploitation material.”

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