EU Crypto Free Trade Area

[Yaman Akdeniz]

Dear Nigel,

> With respect to "export controls" the intra-EU controls fall under
> Export of Good Regulation which is a Community Instrument.  This has
> an Annex (4 I think) with a list of those products which are
> excluded from "free" intra-eU trade.  Crypto is one of the
> categories.  The Commission have noted they intend to revisit the
> latter this year. 

The following is from a piece that I have written last year before 
the consultation paper was announced. The full reference for the 
paper is below.

UK Export Controls 

The use of cryptographic software transmitted internationally may be
restricted by export regulations in the UK as in the US. The Export of
Goods (Control) Order 1994 as amended by The Dual-Use and Related
Goods (Export Control) Regulations 1995 (Customs and Excise, No. 271,
1995) apply to the exportation of cryptographic software from the UK.
The definition of cryptographic software is included in the Schedule
2, 5D2 of the Dual-Use and Related Goods (Export Control) Regulations
1995 and the export of this kind of regulated information requires an
export licence from the Department of Trade and Industry (section 9).
Failure to comply with the licence conditions may result in a maximum
of two years of imprisonment (Section 8).

The DTI White Paper states that export controls will remain in place
for encryption products and for digital encryption algorithms (White
Paper 1996, para 15). The Government however states that it will take
steps to simplify export controls within the European Union with
respect to encryption products which are of use with licensed TTPs.

Although this sounds like a good initiative, it only includes products
which are of use with licensed TTPs. This means that other encryption
tools which are not approved by the TTPs will still be subject to
stricter export regulations.

UK Government Policy on Encryption - 1997 Web Journal of Current Legal
Issues 1 at http://www.ncl.ac.uk/~nlawwww/1997/issue1/akdeniz1.html

Any comments ?
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Yaman Akdeniz <lawya@leeds.ac.uk>
Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK) at:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/law/pgs/yaman/yaman.htm

Read CR&CL (UK) Report, 'Who Watches the Watchmen'
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/law/pgs/yaman/watchmen.htm
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