Parliament of the United Kingdom |
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| Long title | An Act to make provision to facilitate the use of electronic communications and electronic data storage; to make provision about the modification of licences granted under section 7 of the Telecommunications Act 1984; and for connected purposes. |
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| Statute book chapter | 2000 c.7 |
| Dates | |
| Royal Assent | 25 May 2000 |
| Status: | |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
| Official text of the statute as amended and in force today within the United Kingdom, from the UK Statute Law Database | |
The Electronic Communications Act 2000 (c.7) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that:
The United Kingdom government (with Tony Blair as prime minister) had come to the conclusion that encryption, encryption services and electronic signatures would be important to e-commerce in the UK.[1]
By 1999, however, only the security services still hankered after key escrow. So a "sunset clause" was put in the bill. The May 2000 Electronic Communications Act gave the Home Office the power to create a registration regime for encryption services. This was given a five-year period before it would automatically lapse.
The five years expired in May 2005 and the legislation granting such a power disappeared from the statute book.
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