On May 19, the Computer Security Research Centre of the London School of Economics will host a one day meeting on the U.K. Department of Trade and Industry's policy paper "Licensing of Trusted Third Parties for the Provision of Encryption Services," The event is being jointly organised by Privacy International and the Global Internet Liberty Campaign.

The LSE meeting - the only public meeting during the consultation phase - will comprehensively assess all aspects of the governments proposal. Security specialists, academics cryptographers, legal experts, cyber-rights groups, ISP's and other commercial organisations will participate. The DTI and representatives from other agencies will be in attendance for the entire day.

There will be no cost for members of the public to attend. An interactive audiocast on the Internet will also be available.

DRAFT AGENDA:

9:30 a.m. - Welcome

• Dr. James Backhouse, London School of Economics
• Simon Davies, Privacy International

9:40 a.m - Government presentation of proposal

• David Hendon, Head of Technology Policy, Department of Trade and Industry

10:10 a.m. - Architectural and Technical

• Dr. Ross Anderson, Cambridge University
• Dr. Whit Diffie, Sun Microsystems
• Phil Zimmermann, PGP Inc.

11:00 a.m. - Break

11:20 a.m. - Legal and Commercial

• Peter Sommer, London School of Economics
• Dr. Carl Ellison, Cybercash
• Peter Dare, IBM UK

12:10 p.m. - International

• John Dryden, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
• Alistair Kelman, London School of Economics

12:45 p.m. - Lunch

2:00 p.m.- Civil Rights and Privacy

• Simon Davies, Privacy International
• David Banisar, Electronic Privacy Information Center

2:45 p.m. - Law Enforcement

• Graham Collins, National Criminal Intelligence Service

3:30 p.m. - Panel and Open Discussion

• Moderator: Caspar Bowden, Scientists for Labour

4:00 p.m. - Coffee and Informal Discussion

REGISTRATION

We are sorry but due to overwhelming demand for the conference there is no more room availalable. Please listen on the cybercast.

CYBERCAST

The event will be cybercast over the Internet using RealAudio.

Go to the Cybercast Link

RELATED DOCUMENTS

• Department of Trade and Industry, "Licensing of Trusted Third Parties for the Provision of Encryption Services",19 March 1997.

• Department of Trade and Industry, Paper on Regulatory Intent Concerning Use of Encryption on Public Networks, June 1996.

• Labour party position on encryption.

• Letter from 18 international cyber-liberties groups protesting proposal, 9 April 1997.

• Commentary and questionnaire on proposal by Dr Brian Gladman, TIS, 23 March 1997.
  • Preliminary results of survey.

• Yaman Akdeniz, UK Government Policy on Encryption, 1997 Web Journal of Current Legal Issues 1 (February).

• Richard Clayton, The DTI proposals on Encryption an overview. Annotated list of related materials.

• Ross Anderson, Crypto in Europe - Markets, Law and Policy surveys the uses of cryptography in Europe and points out some misconceptions in government policy statements.