Global Encryption Day is October 21, and the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) invites you to join our virtual briefing on encryption policy.
Encryption makes our digital lives safe and secure. Without encryption, online ecommerce would be impossible, or at least very risky, and private communications wouldn’t be private. Without encryption, it would be dangerous to walk around with a device in your pocket containing tons of personal information.
But there were no guarantees that Americans were going to be permitted to use encryption online. During the Clinton administration, when so many critical decisions were made about Internet governance, law enforcement and the Clinton administration itself wanted to either ban encryption entirely or insist that all encryption keys be held in a kind of “escrow” that would be available to state and federal governments. Defenders of liberty, including IPI, fought to guarantee the right of encryption for ordinary Internet users, and we were successful.
Nonetheless, government agencies resent encryption and see it as a tool for criminals, and companies like Apple have been criticized for incorporating encryption that they themselves cannot break. So it’s important for defenders of liberty to remind Americans that encryption is a key element of “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects.”
Please join the Institute for Policy Innovation on October 21 for a virtual briefing on Global Encryption Day, discussing the importance of encryption with policy and industry experts.