UK Home Office to Enable Part 3 of the RIP Act

"Give us your private encryption keys...your keys beyond to us!"

Or at least that is what the UK government will be telling its citizens soon.

The UK's Home Office is seeking to turn on Part 3 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000 (RIP or RIPA) very soon.

Part 3 of the RIP Act gives the police powers to order the disclosure of encryption keys or force suspects to decrypt encrypted data.

Anyone who refuses to hand over a key to the police would face up to two years of imprisonment. Under current antiterrorism legislation, terrorist suspects now face up to five years for withholding keys.

Please note this part of a recent ZDNet article.

Casper Bowden, a former director of the FIPR who led the fight against the introduction of the RIP Act several years ago, said during the meeting that Part 3 is flawed because defendants could be prosecuted for simply losing an encryption key.

"The burden of proof is on the suspect to prove that they don't have the key, and if they fail, they go to prison. But if they can give an explanation for not having the key, then the prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt that they are lying," Bowden said.

I understand why police want this power, but in my view...this is too wide and seems like it could be abused in a huge way by many groups of people.

Wikipedia shares this little piece of information as well.

In September 2003, Home Secretary David Blunkett announced wide-ranging extensions to the list of those entitled to see information collected under the RIPA. The list now includes jobcentres, local councils, and the Chief Inspector of Schools. Civil rights and privacy campaigners have dubbed these extensions a "snoopers' charter".

Here is the full text of the RIP Act of 2000.

Rickard Falkvinge, chairman of the Sweden's Pirate Party, might have said it best in this WiredFire.org article about about DarkNets.

"There are many legitimate reasons to want to be completely anonymous on the Internet" going on to add "If the government can check everything each citizen does, nobody can keep the government in check. The right to exchange information in private is fundamental to the democratic society. Without a safe and convenient way of accessing the Internet anonymously, this right is rendered null and void."