Industry insiders challenge RIP Bill

Industry groups and users will today get their first chance to grill Government ministers and Home Office officials in public about the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Bill.

The RIP Bill is designed to bolster the Government's e-commerce legislation, but network managers have expressed concern because it could expand phone tapping to private networks. Industry experts warned that the proposals could hinder the UK's chance of becoming the e-business capital of the world.

Criticism of the Bill centres on proposals that the police and security services should be empowered to force network managers to hand over decryption keys or the original plain text of e-mail documents. Network managers who are unwilling or unable to comply face going to prison.

Caspar Bowden, director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR), said: "Either the Home Office has completely overlooked the issue of technical security for keys seized by a multitude of public authorities or Parliament is being hopelessly misled about the costs of implementation."

Brian Gladman, technical advisor to the FIPR, said: "The Bill still contains the provision that someone is guilty of an offence if they have ever had a key, but are unable to surrender it." He added that network managers would have to implement expensive key storage systems in order to avoid the risk of going to prison.