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By Sally Watson, 21 July 2000 12:44

NEWS One of the world's largest internet service providers, PSINet, has said it will seriously consider leaving the UK if the government passes its controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Bill. In a statement to silicon.com, Alexander Hazell, lawyer for the carrier, said: "We accept there is a public interest requirement to fight crime, but not at all costs. The UK government definitely wants to go too far this time. "If the Bill is passed then PSINet will have to seriously reconsider whether the UK is an appropriate place for electronic commerce at all." The news comes in response to fellow ISPs Poptel, Claranet and GreenNet threatening similar action if the Bill becomes law. According to PSINet, the costs of monitoring will be huge, especially for larger ISPs. "It is not even known in these days of packet-switched, multiplexed networks whether the proposed monitoring is technically feasible, which obviously adds to the uncertainty of costs," said Hazell. Hazell added that the legislation could have significant economic impact on the UK, with the displacement of investment in new and existing operations to other countries with less interception laws. The Bill ended its third report stage in the House of Lords earlier this week and will now return to the House of Commons for approval of the Lord's amendments, including a Technical Advisory Board and tighter constraints on the seizure of encryption keys. According to Lord Cope, leader of the Conservative opposition to the Bill, the amended Bill is much improved but still deeply flawed.