Animal rights activists fear the RIPA

Animal rights activists have been requested by the police to hand over the keys used to unlock encrypted data on computers seized by the police, using powers given to them by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). The BBC carries a report on this matter, quoting and linking to a post on the subject by IP/IT barrister David Harris. In that post, David says, of the request received by one activist:

"She will be required to prove that she doesn’t have the relevant keys and if this is not done she risks 2 or 5 years in prison depending on whether it is a terror related request. The proof of a negative is, of course, logically impossible and quite how this would play in court would be interesting and probably factually dependant: would the jury believe her assertion that a third party put the encrypted files on her PC? Or that if they didn’t that she had forgotten her key?

If forensic evidence suggests an encrypted file was recently accessed it may be hard to convince a jury the key was forgotten. In this case however it may well be that since the laptop had been seized 6 months ago it is plausible she had forgotten it subsequently, particularly if it is long complex difficult to remember key."

Comments

[Deryck]

If this is true, RIPA will prove something of an empty vessel in this respect. It is obviously very difficult to prove a negative, and the more complex a case is, the longer it takes to get to court, so the "oh I forgot" issue would always be a feature. The logical approach will surely be to look at the activity in the run up to arrest / siezure, and to ensure that the suspect is questioned as soon as ever possible. The snag with this is of course that it takes time (especially with finite resources) - and pecialist help - to delve into impounded computers, no matter how efficient the investigating officers are.

From the prosecution point of view, a good question to ask the defendant in such cases is likley to be "if you weren't accessing these files on your computer, then who was ?"