British espionage law proposal does contain a ban on encryption

The proposal of the new UK Espionage Act would prohibit any form of encryption that can only be decrypted by the user himself. This could hit big tech companies like Apple and Google, forcing them to use weakened encryption or build in backdoors.

Contrary to previous reports, this reports the Daily Telegraph. The bill would not prohibit every form of encryption, only the form of encryption that cannot be decrypted by the providers themselves. according to Edward Snowden’s inability to decrypt by third parties is precisely the purpose of encryption. The proposal means that tech companies would no longer be allowed to offer end-to-end encryption because they would not be able to comply with a government decryption request. Apple, among others, advertises this as an important privacy feature with its products.

So companies would have to intentionally build vulnerabilities into encryption services to comply with the new legislation. The risk is that malicious parties can use the same vulnerabilities. In addition, many encryption tools are open source, which reduces the effectiveness of an encryption ban on these companies.

British Prime Minister David Cameron says the measures are necessary to “not provide a safe place for terrorists, criminals and child abductors on the internet”. After all, they would also not be safe when they use fixed or mobile telephony. Parliament has yet to approve the law. The proposal with more information about the British government plans will be released on Wednesday.