The DTI have made a public consultation paper on the liscensing
of trusted third parties for the provision of encryption services
available on their website at
http://dtiinfo1.dti.gov.uk/pubs/#Proh
Specifically, they say the legislation will prohibit an
organisation from offering or providing encryption services
to the UK public without a licence, where
* Public will be defined to cover any natural or legal person
in the UK.
* Encryption services is meant to encompass any service, whether
provided free or not, which involves any or all of the
following cryptographic functionality -
key management,
key recovery,
key certification,
key storage,
message integrity (through the use of digital signatures)
key generation,
time stamping,
or key revocation services (whether for integrity or
confidentiality),
which are offered in a manner which allows a client to
determine a choice of cryptographic key or allows the
client a choice of recipient/s.
Such legislation would
1. hamper British business from producing software conforming
with international standards, such as IPP (an Internet
Printing Protocol recently agreed by IBM, Microsoft, Sun,
Novell, Netscape, Xerox, Sharp, Canon, Adobe, HP, etc.)
2. make impossible the use of any applications such as SSL, which
require the frequent generation of session keys.
3. give the government unprecedented powers to impersonate and
discredit individuals.
What is Labour's position on this issue?
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