Security News > 2020 > January > We need to make it even easier for UK terror cops to rummage about in folks' phones, says govt lawyer
The Government Reviewer of Terrorism Laws has declared that safeguards protecting Britons from police workers demanding passwords for their devices must be watered down.
In a speech delivered to conservative think tank the Henry Jackson Society yesterday, Jonathan Hall QC, the "Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation"* said section 49 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 is too "Difficult" for police and others to work with.
Section 49 of RIPA is the part of UK law that lets police and others legally order suspects to hand over passwords for encrypted information.
Even these sweeping permissions and slim safeguards are too narrow, in Hall's view.
In a coded warning, Hall appeared to suggest that opposing an expansion of forced-decryption powers could lead to "Longer and longer periods of pre-trial detention being sought" by police, spies and the like.