UK RIPA Pt 3

[Peter Fairbrother]

Peter Fairbrother wrote:
> The UK Home Office have just announced that they intend to bring the 
> provisions of Pt 3 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 
> into force on 1st October. This is the law that enables Policemen to 
> demand keys to encrypted material, on pain of imprisonment, and without 
> judicial approval of these demands.
> 
> There is one last Parliamentary process to go through, the approval of a 
> code of practice, but as far as I know there has never been a case of 
> one of these failing to pass - though a related one was withdrawn a few 
> years ago. We will try to prevent it happening, the chances of success 
> are against us but it is not impossible.
> 
> 
> You are not required to keep keys indefinitely, or give up a key you 
> don't have, but the rules regarding the assumption that you know a key 
> at least partially reverse the normal burden of proof.


I forgot to mention that Pt.3 also includes coercive demands for access 
keys - so for instance if Mr Bill Gates came to the UK, and if there was 
some existing question about Microsoft's behaviour in some perhaps 
current EU legal matter, Mr Gates could be required to give up the keys 
to the Microsoft internal US servers. Or go to jail.


Though I'd quite like to see that :), I don't think it would be entirely 
appropriate ...


-- Peter Fairbrother

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