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UK Cops Want Your Encryption Keys
David Utter
Staff Writer
2006-08-21
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An effort to activate part of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act in Great Britain would make it a crime to refuse to hand over encryption keys on official request.
 | | UK Cops Want Your Keys |  |
When the US Government battled with PGP creator Phil Zimmermann many years ago over the release of his encryption software, it was thought that the government feared the encryption could be uncrackable.
Although the government eventually backed off its attacks on Zimmermann, another government has started to rekindle its battle against the use of encryption. In Great Britain, Part 3 of the RIP Act could become part of the legal landscape.
Massimo Cotrozzi at Zone-H wrote of the request by UK law enforcement to activate Part 3 and require the surrender of software keys to decrypt information upon belief that evidence of criminal activity may be protected by encryption.
Failure to comply could result in a two-year jail sentence. According to a ZDNet UK report, that could be upped to five years if there is suspicion of pedophilic or terrorism-related material under encryption.
That report also cited an observation that computers with uncrackable encryption have been piling up in evidence holding around the country. Without the ability to compel disclosure of a key, the potential evidence on those machines cannot be accessed.
A summary of Part 3 as published by the UK Home Office, noted that the compulsion to produce those keys "have not yet been implemented because the development and adoption of encryption and other information protection technologies has been slower than was anticipated when the Act was passed."
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Tags: RIPA, Part III
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About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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