RIP and children (It's all Ross Anderson's Fault)

[Jeremy Barker]

Bill Thompson wrote:

> Ian G Batten <I.G.Batten@ftel.co.uk> writes:
>
> > what happens if the encryption
> >keys are held by someone who is below the age of criminal responsibility?
>
> to which Peter Gutmann wrote:
>
> >Some nice Social Welfare people come along and remove your child into safe
> >custody away from your corrupting influence.  Eight years later your
> daughter
> >is on the UK equivalent of Oprah telling everyone how she suffered ritual
> >satanic sexual abuse by you as a child.
>
> However my 11 year old daughter is reaching the stage where she is
> perfectly capable of setting up PGP herself, or of getting herself
> a Hushmail account, and of keeping secrets even from me.  Will I go
> to gaol if she refuses to hand over her passphrase, just as I can
> be fined if she refuses to go to school?

She is well over the (disgracefully low) age of criminal responsibility so
would be guilty of an offence and liable to whatever sort of sentence can be
passed on one so young.  However I think it's really rather unlikely that it
would be seen to be in the public interest to prosecute a child for somehting
like this - in which case the CPS would likely drop the case.

jb