New statistics have indicated to the Turner Little team that people would rather go to jail than reveal their encrypted passwords to the police.
Criminal offence
Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, refusing to hand encryption keys and passwords to the police is a criminal offence. It carries a minimum sentence of two years under normal circumstances, or five years in cases of national security. The minimum sentence may be two years, but in reality people who refuse to hand encrypted passwords to the police often receive jail sentences that amount to no more than a few months.
Rising convictions
, analysis of Crown Prosecution Services data indicates that increasingly, people are willing to serve a few months in jail rather than hand
over their encrypted passwords. The conviction rate for this offence has risen by a factor of six in the past four years.
Deeper analysis of the data suggests that whilst only 11 people were convicted of this offence in 2010-2011, 62 were convicted of refusing to hand encrypted passwords over in 2014-2015. These statistics show that the number of convictions of this crime under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act doubled to 30 from 2012-2013 to 2013-2014.
Emerging trend
Gavin Thomas, vice-president of the Police Superintendents Association, spoke out on the release of these figures. He said that “there is clearly a developing trend for criminals to plead guilty rather than expose themselves to evidence that could implicate them for more serious offences.”
A detective from the North of England, who did not wish to be named by The Times, added: “If someone can plead guilty to a password offence, and block the police from seeing what they’ve been downloading, it’s fairly obvious what choice they will make.”
Turner Little
As Turner Little has already explained, people may be willing to go to jail rather than hand over their encrypted passwords to protect their privacy. If you’re the head of a company, you need to ensure you have the right to privacy to safeguard your firm’s vital information e.g. banking details. You can shield your banking details by investing in offshore banking services, such as those provided by Turner Little.
Turner Little was founded in 1998 and it has since become a well-established UK based professional Company Registration Agents, Registered Bank Intermediaries and Business Consultants, as well as Trust providers.
