Is anybody listening?
Three years on the e-commerce draft remains unclear and controversial
The second edition of the Scrambling for Safety conference this year (and the fourth edition overall) opened to familiar complaints. "De facto this is about law enforcement and not helping UK internet business", said Tim Pearson of the Internet Service Providers Association in his introductory speech, and indeed, once again talk was heavily focused on the interception issues contained in the draft Electronic Communications Bill. But, as Person asked, "is anybody listening".
The latest edition of the conference was like a remix of the previous edition in March and, if anything, an improved version, with different voices in places, but the same rap. The problem, however, as Pearson asked, is if anybody is listening to the music. Moreover, is it possible for a bill that has been three years in the making to still remain shrouded in controversy and uncertainty? And is this because, as Peter Sommer, the special adviser to the trade and industry select committee, pointed out "the main issues are political, not technical"?
The politics of paranoia
And the politics were obvious: Tory MP Alan Duncan, the shadow spokesman on trade and industry, said that despite the government's attempts to convince the opposition of the contrary, the Bill was deemed to chunky: "it needs to be three pages long, instead of 30 plus", he said. Adding that the consultation period was "insufficient".
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According to the shadow spokesman, the first clause of the Bill, referring to voluntary licensing, is "pernicious...and ill-conceived" and therefore should be dropped in favour of self-regulation for the industry, while the third clause, on intrusion, should be included in the Interception of Communications Act (IOCA). The remaining clause, regarding electronic signatures, is acceptable for Alan Duncan, but in need of a trim.
On a more paranoid note, Duncan said that the current draft leaves people open to frame-ups: "I could be sent an encrypted child pornography picture I cannot open, the police arrives...." And the MP could be sent to prison for not being able to prove that he did not know what was contained in the e-mail he received. Overall, the shadow spokesman voiced many of concerns expressed by the industry's representatives, but curiously skirted over the fact that the current Labour draft is little more than a watered down version of the initial Tory draft compiled back in March 1997, which included compulsory licensing and key escrow (both now dropped).
Clause 3 and the EU Convention on Human Rights
The legal aspects of the third clause of the draft bill were also picked up, with less sensationalism and more authority, by Nicholas Bohm of the Law Society. The legal expert pointed out how compelling a witness to provide information that could be self-incriminating (clause 12.1 it is an offence not to release encryption keys) goes against the European Union's Convention on Human Rights which acknowledges the right to a fair trial and the privilege against self-incrimination. For her part, Britain's first "e-minister" Patricia Hewitt said that "the Bill will be fully compliant of human rights".
Beyond the legal implications of the bill, many technical naivetes were also highlighted. According to Ross Anderson, of the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR), while it was a good thing that key escrow was laid to rest, this does not mark the end of the matter. Anderson warned of the dangers of simply referring to cryptography, without differentiating between its different applications. In the opinion of the FIPR trustee, the government's approach to crypto practices is more in line with a mid-seventies picture of the market, when cryptography was mainly limited to military purposes. A quarter of a century later, cryptographic tools are used by the pay-tv sector, GSM manufacturers, car alarm makers, etc. The government's seemingly weak grip on technology was also picked by Tim Pearson who said that the interception model defined by the draft is too simple and static, based as it is around the telephone interception model. But "what is IP interception?", he asked.
On a final note, considering that much of the discussion once again was focused on the need to remove the interception clauses from the draft (and move them to IOCA, as many suggested), it was a shame to see that the Home Office was not able to send anybody along prior to the closure of the consultation period on 8 October.
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