Man jailed in England for not revealing computer password

[thewayne]

A 19 year old refused to give up a 50 character password and is sentenced to 16 weeks in jail. He's being investigated for child exploitation. In England, you can't make the excuse "I don't remember it" without going to jail. It's not yet against the law in the US, but who knows how long that will last.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11479831

http://it.slashdot.org/story/10/10/05/2038219/British-Teen-Jailed-Over-Encryption-Password

And an XKCD cartoon showing the true value of disk encryption: http://xkcd.com/538/

Comments

[silveradept]

Well, if someone's got a warrant for your drive, I think refusing them the password is going to get you hit with some charge. Still, I'm not sure I like these askings, as they tend to presume that when you use passwords, it's because you're hiding.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

That's the problem. Too few will accept "just because I have nothing to hide you don't have the right to poke around in my private information."

[silveradept]

Very much so. That's why I like the requirements of court orders and warrants - they're very specific and they mean, at least nominally, that someone had to make a case before a judge to do that thing.