Microsoft might compromise on encryption battle, suggests GC

Despite last week urging US President Barack Obama not to force IT companies to weaken encryption for national security reasons, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith has suggested that UK proposals along these lines might be accepted by the company.

29 May 2015

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Britain's newly re-elected prime minister David Cameron has previously said that he would support laws that stopped consumers using unbreakable encryption through their IT suppliers. Talking about this proposal this week, Mr Smith said: 'It’s a big market, and it’s a country [which], we believe, has a fundamental rule of law in place. We still don’t like it, but you could imagine one argument that says, ‘OK, we’re going to do it'.' Such a law would mean that the security services were able to break the encryption barriers that were used by consumers. Law firms make up a very particular group of consumers here - and most will be eager to ensure that their clients' data has the highest standard of encryption barriers around it.

Door ajar

Last week, Microsoft was one of 30 signatories to a letter to the US President asking that no such weakening of encryption be insisted upon by US law. Mr Smith's comments this week leave the possibility available that Microsoft might not co-operate with such changes in the law in the UK. Source: Wall Street Journal