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Comment by kelnos | Hacker News Reader

Well, the UK can lock you up until you give them your passwords. That method usually works pretty well for nation states.

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Why "nation state"? It isn't one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_state

It is a nation state, even the UK Office for National Statistics describes it as such.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland retain the term country or nation for historical identity reasons, not contemporary practical or relevant reasons.

Can they do it now or they may/are expected to pass the necessary legislation for that?

I guess what OP meant is, the court can compel you to do so - and yes, already. Basically the court can compel you to provide any information it needs in the course of legal proceedings, and until you do, fine and/or imprison you indefinitely.

But, you know, there must be legal proceedings, the court must be satisfied that the information is necessary, etc. The guy at the border can't do that, on their own initiative. But of course, they can just not let you in.

Well, if a court has to decide that, this is good enough for the balance between privacy and the interests of society. If they don't let me in based on my refusal but I'm free to return where I came from, it is also fine.

witholding your password or encryption keys has been illegal since 2000 in the uk under section 49 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 , and by section 53 refusal can lead to 2 to 5 years in prison.

Is it illegal in response to police request (i.e. immediately, no justification needed) or in response to the request of the court (where due process was followed)?

Edit: does it apply to border guards too?

It has to be in writing, and given a time-frame, but the police are authorised to write such a note, as is the border force, the NCA and I think HMRC as well technically.

There are cases of people being prosecuted under it [1], [2], [3]

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/cage-muhammad-rabbani-ant...

[2] https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/drug-sus...

[3] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/facebook-passwor...

In those cases people were subjects of investigation and there was a really good reason to demand the keys. It isn’t abuse of power by law enforcement and it’s very far from random border checks or stops where law enforcement was looking for something incriminating rather than conducting an investigation. And of course it is not the same as making encryption illegal (which would allow mass surveillance).

the first case was literally a border check at an airport, and in which no evidence was ever shown of him committing a crime other than this one. The others yes. The point is no court was required to compell him, no warrant was needed. The point is that the law allows for abuse of power by law enforcement not that it is currently being abused, do not move the goal-posts.

Also if encryption itself is not illegal, but it is illegal to not decrypt something when asked, then encryption is effectively illegal, since you only need to convince a part of the state that you have suspicion to get it decrypted for you, a task which is really not that difficult in the modern day.

I looked deeper into the first case and it doesn’t look like a random border check. He was a political activist who got in touch with a member of terrorist organization, if I understand it correctly. There was a massive media campaign to present this case in a certain way, but at least two courts confirmed the legality of the demand to unlock the devices.

The abuse of power means they could detain him indefinitely etc (as it happens in countries where abuse of power is common). But in this case he had the right to defend himself in the court and he used it.

This is very far from the situation where encryption is illegal, all communications are transparent to the state and it can search for incriminating data without asking.

Does that mean that all encryption is now illegal in the UK, even for foreign citizens?

Not at all. It means that the UK police can compel you to turn over your decryption keys if it is deemed necessary and proportionate to prevent or investigate a crime.

Which makes the requested backdoor completely frivolous and something only criminals would need.

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