Congress Must Ban all Government Efforts To Install Back Doors, ITIF Report Says

Attempts to weaken or restrict encryption would have a damaging impact on the overall digital economy, including undermining systems, increasing consumer costs, and diminishing America's global competitiveness, said the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in a report released Monday (see 1603040023). ITIF authors Daniel Castro and Alan McQuinn said the U.S. government should promote better cybersecurity practices around the world, "in part by encouraging continued innovation in encryption." They said the government can rebuild trust in the domestic technology sector through strong data security practices in the U.S. Congress should prohibit NSA from "intentionally weakening encryption standards" and improve transparency of the cryptographic standards-setting process, they said. It should also pass legislation to ban efforts to install back doors into products and services and preempt any similar actions by state governments, plus oppose other governments' initiatives to introduce back doors into products and services or weaken encryption, they wrote. Castro and McQuinn said Congress should set "clear rules for how and when law enforcement can hack into private systems, and how and when law enforcement can compel companies to assist in investigations." And it should provide more resources to law enforcement in investigations and analysis of digital evidence, they said.