UK Police Can Now Demand Encryption Keys

[Nomad559]

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2200371/uk-police-demand-encryption-keys

People in the UK who encrypt their data are now obliged by law to give up the encryption keys to law enforcement officials who request it, under part of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA).

Section 49 of Part III of RIPA compels a person, when served with a notice, to either hand over an encryption key or render the requested material intelligible by authorities.

This section of RIPA was included in the original draft of the Act but was not activated, as encryption was considered not widely used enough at the time to be of sufficient concern.

If the order comes as part of a terrorism investigation, refusal can earn someone up to five years in jail, and in other cases refusal to comply could get you a two year sentence.

The new law came into effect from 1 October, the same day RIPA forced all telecommunications companies to log details about every call and text message sent and received in the UK for a year.

[Gravel2008]

1. Scary. The UK is so far gone towards Big Brotherdom it's not even funny

How the hell can Britons be so complaisant about it? They don't deserve to be free.

[ThoughtCriminal]

2. This is why I keep a few terrabytes of random numbers

No there's no encryption, I just collect numbers. They're welcome to spend the next few geological epochs trying to decode it.