The Electronic Communications Act 2000 (c.7) is an Act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace ...

that: *Had provisions to regulate the provision of

cryptographic Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or '' -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversarial behavior. More gen ...

services in the UK (ss.1-6); and *Confirms the legal status of

electronic signature An electronic signature, or e-signature, is data that is logically associated with other data and which is used by the signatory to sign the associated data. This type of signature has the same legal standing as a handwritten signature as long as ...

s (ss.7-10). The United Kingdom government had come to the conclusion that encryption, encryption services and electronic signatures would be important to

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

in the UK. By 1999, however, only the security services still hankered after key escrow. So a " sunset clause" was put in the bill. The Electronic Communications Act 2000 gave the

Home Office The Home Office (HO), also known (especially in official papers and when referred to in Parliament) as the Home Department, is the United Kingdom's interior ministry. It is responsible for public safety and policing, border security, immigr ...

the power to create a registration regime for encryption services. This was given a five-year period before it would automatically lapse, which eventually happened in May 2006.

References

External links

An account from the Foundation For Information Policy Research
* United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 2000 Cryptography law {{UK-statute-stub