[FYI] BUILDING CONFIDENCE IN ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

[Horns@t-online.de (Axel H. Horns)]

http://jya.com/dti030599.htm

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15 March 1999. Thanks to TK.
Source:
http://www.nds.coi.gov.uk/coi/coipress.nsf/ec99f27fdec7ef20802564da002
d9e0f/072c307192e814068025672b00580db6?OpenDocument


 dti 


P/99/200 5 March 1999

BUILDING CONFIDENCE IN ELECTRONIC COMMERCE 

Government consults on proposals to make UK best place to trade 
electronically

With Electronic Commerce set to soar to #350 billion world-wide by
2002 and with six million Britons already on-line, the Government is
introducing proposals today to boost our economy's competitiveness by
giving the UK a head start in the new digital marketplace.

"Building Confidence in Electronic Commerce - A Consultation 
Document", is published by Trade and Industry Secretary Stephen Byers
and Home Secretary Jack Straw. It aims to build people's trust in
trading on the internet and is a central part of the Government's
strategy to ensure that the UK becomes the world's best place to do
business electronically. The UK is already well-placed - with over 1
million internet users, and 15 per cent of the adult UK population
already having visited the World Wide Web.

[...]

Jack Straw said:

"Cryptography has an important contribution to make in the successful
development of electronic commerce.

"Alongside this, the Government also has a fundamental responsibility
to protect the public. Encryption is already being used by drug
traffickers, terrorists and paedophiles. We must ensure that vital law
enforcement powers keep pace with this new technology.

"We are therefore announcing today proposals for lawful access to
encryption keys.

"We need to maintain the effectiveness of existing interception and
search and seizure powers which are essential to the battle against
serious crime and terrorism".

[...]

Taken together, the proposals in this paper, which will form the basis
of our Electronic Commerce Bill, will give the UK the most attractive
legal framework in the world for doing electronic business. The paper
is available at 

http://www.dti.gov.uk/CII/elec/elec_com.html



# = pounds sterling



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