Ecommerce Bill in trouble over human rights

The UK government is under attack this morning over claims that its Electronic Communications Bill contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights.

An audit of the draft legislation conducted by Jack Beatson QC, professor of law at Cambridge University and former law commissioner, claimed there are "serious concerns" about the Bill's compliance with Article 8 of the Convention - a right to respect for private life and correspondence.

Peter Noorlander, legal policy officer at human rights group, Justice, claimed he was "almost sure" there are direct violations in the Bill. He added that Justice - which examines every piece of government legislation for human rights flaws - had never seen such a badly drafted document.

The controversy surrounds Part III of the Bill, which provides powers for the investigation of "protected electronic data". According to Beatson and fellow barrister Tim Eicke, the proposal to give police access to private encryption keys will "compromise the whole security of electronic communications by giving access to [the user's] communications past, present and future".

Another objection is that presumption of innocence has been reversed, putting the onus on the user to prove they don't have access to an encryption key - rather than on the police to prove they do.

Jonathan Steel, chairman of the Bathwick Group, said: "The powers they have given the police are ridiculous. The physical equivalent is of the police coming round to your house claiming you have stolen a video and arresting you because you can't prove you didn't."

Tim Conway, director of the CSSA's information age unit, claimed Part III should be removed from the Bill: "The general principle of the Bill is to encourage ecommerce - Part III sits awkwardly with that. It should be kept together with other police powers, like the Police & Criminal Evidence Act."

Nicholas Bohm, legal officer at the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR) agreed. "The government needs to take a plain, straightforward approach. They would get a large measure of support if they said a court could order someone to decrypt messages - but not the police. Adopting this extremely complicated legislation is profoundly counterproductive."

Justice and FIPR are campaigning for Part III to be rewritten before the Bill goes to Parliament.

The Home Office was unable to comment.