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In the UK, yes. Holding encrypted data against the wishes of the government, that is to say you are unwilling to decrypt it for them, is a crime. I believe up to two years in prison.

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That's actually fucking insane. Things aren't great here in the USA, but as another user stated, encrypted data is indistinguishable from random data. Someone could point at scrambled bits on your harddrive and accuse you a crime you didn't necessarily commit.

jeeeeesus

Its even worse. I heard of someone who was raided in London based on the fact their IP was busy with torrents. Two of his drives were encrypted. But guess what - it wasn't he who torrented but another person who shared housing/same IP. So he happily gave up the password. Unfortunately for him, one drive got open (with bunch of his emails) another one did not want to. Although he swears he used same pass for both, apparently the second drive got corrupted during transportation, which can happen very easily. He still sits in jail 8 months later. So when you ready to give out your password - pray your drives did not get corrupted.

Do you have a source?

(Not disbelief or concern trolling, I'd like to find out more about this case.)

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