UK government launches ecommerce taskforce

NEWS The UK government today launched a taskforce designed to address the twin issues of ecommerce and cyber-law enforcement. Home Secretary Jack Straw and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Stephen Byers were both present at the launch of the unit - which has been personally backed by the Prime Minster. The Performance and Innovation Unit is tasked with finding an alternative to the widely criticised key escrow policy, which has now been dropped by the government. The unit will develop a legal and commercial framework which will allow law enforcement agencies access to encryption keys when they need to monitor criminal activity, but without encroaching on the privacy rights of businesses trying to trade over the Web. Straw admitted the government's original plans to implement key escrow had been a mistake. "There have been huge practical problems associated with key escrow which is why we're not following the policy," he said. There were no details as to how the framework will operate in practise. It is widely expected that encryption keys will be private - as demanded by business - until criminal activity is suspected, then law enforcement agencies will be able to obtain a warrant giving them the right to demand the key. The government also revealed the results of its annual ecommerce benchmarking survey. Byers claimed the findings show the UK is approaching US levels of success in global online trading. But he added: "There are no grounds for complacency, particularly in the small and medium-sized company sector where UK lags behind severely." Byers confirmed that his department is launching initiatives to help bring this sector into line with the rest of the economy.