Thursday, July 16, 2015

In a huge U-turn, the UK government now says it is NOT going to try and ban encryption...

The UK government will not try to ban encryption, a Number 10 spokesperson has told Business Insider.

The denial comes after Prime Minister David Cameron suggested in Parliament at the end of June that he intended to crack down on encryption technology, saying that he wanted to “ensure that terrorists do not have a safe space in which to communicate.”

Cameron’s comments echoed his earlier remarks on the subject — asking in January whether “we want to allow a means of communication between two people which even in extemis with a signed warrant from the home secretary personally that we cannot read? … My answer to that question is no, we must not. The first duty of any government is to keep our country and our people safe.”

These statements had been widely regarded as a signal that he intended to attempt to ban strong encryption in the upcoming Investigatory Powers Bill in the Autumn. Strong encryption refers to a way of scrambling messages or data in such a way that they cannot be understood without the correct password or key — even by law enforcement officials or the encryption software provider. Full story...

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