Electronic Communications Act 2000
- Electronic Communications Act 2000
The Electronic Communications Act 2000 (2000 Chapter c.7) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that:
*Regulates the provision of cryptographic services in the UK (ss.1-6); and
*Confirms the legal status of electronic signatures (ss.7-10).
The United Kingdom government (with Tony Blair as prime minister) had seemingly come to the conclusion that encryption, encryption services and electronic signatures would be important to the flowering of e-commerce in the UK.
Interestingly, the Bill contained a "sunset clause".
When Blair's party had been the opposition party in the mid-1990s they had opposed what the then UK government (and US government) would have preferred, which was some form of key escrow: keys used in encryption would have to be lodged somewhere accessible to governments. However, when Blair's "New Labour" party came to power they seemed to change their mind; perhaps, as is alleged, because of lobbying by the US.
By 1999, however, only the security services still hankered after key escrow. So a "sunset clause" was put in the bill. The May 2000 Electronic Communications Act gave the Home Office the power to create a registration regime for encryption services. This was given a five-year period before it would automatically lapse.
The five years expired in May 2005 and the legislation granting such a power disappeared from the statute book.
External links
* [http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/20000007.htm Full text of act]
* [http://www.fipr.org/press/050525crypto.html An account from the Foundation For Information Policy Research]
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2010.
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