New Bill Attempts to Stop State Bans on Encryption

The encryption battle took another turn this week when a new bill, titled the Ensuring National Constitutional Rights of Your Private Telecommunications (ENCRYPT) Act of 2016, was introduced by two United States Congressmen. This bill is a response to recent efforts by individual states to enact encryption backdoors, and aims to make “encryption a federal issue and keep individual states from trying to ban it.”

After becoming frustrated that encryption backdoors haven’t been mandated at the federal level, two states (California and New York) recently introduced draft legislation in an attempt to enact it at the state level. While these state bills have some supporters (including the National District Attorneys Association), there are also many concerns surrounding them. Aside from privacy concerns associated with backdoor encryption, there are also questions about their feasibility as they “would likely force a company like Apple to choose between not selling its encrypted-by-default iPhones in those states or developing an alternative product line with weaker security.”

The ENCRYPT bill aims to stop this state-level legislation, and was put forth by Ted Lieu and Blake Farenthold. Lieu has a degree in computer science and is one of the strongest proponents for strong encryption. We see the ENCRYPT Act as promising news in the ongoing battle over encryption, and hope that others will join in supporting the effort to safeguard privacy.

What do you think will happen next in the encryption battle? Tell us in the comments below!

Source: The Daily Dot

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