Skip to main content

Web creator Tim Berners-Lee slams UK government's plans to break encryption

The web pioneer said moves to undermine encryption would represent a massive security breach

POB 2014: Sir Tim Berners Lee

POB 2014: Sir Tim Berners Lee

The creator of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee , has slammed the government's plans to weaken encryption in the wake of the Westminster terror attack.
He warned that giving the intelligence agencies a key to unlock coded messages would have serious consequences.
"Now I know that if you're trying to catch terrorists it's really tempting to demand to be able to break all that encryption," he told the BBC.
But if you break that encryption then guess what - so could other people - and guess what - they may end up getting better at it than you are.
Computer hacker silhouette
In further comments to tech site Wired, he said the ability to hold conversations in private is fundamental for democracy.
"Its really important for business and it's really important for human day-to-day life," he said.
"As an individual, I should be able to keep my own notes, keep my own journal and not share it with anybody. That is just part of being a person."
His comments come after Home Secretary Amber Rudd accused WhatsApp and other encrypted messaging services of giving criminals "a place to hide".
Last week she called a meeting with Silicon Valley chiefs, threatening to force them to break encryption in cases where it was "providing a secret place for terrorists"
In a joint letter to the Home Secretary, executives from Microsoft, Facebook, Google and Twitter promised to do more to block hateful and terrorist content from their platforms.
However, they did not respond publicly to the minister's attack on encryption.
Berners-Lee made the comments as he was awarded the Turing Award - computing's version of the Nobel Prize - by the Association of Computing Machinery.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee St Andrews University degree ceremony
The prize, now in its 50th year, is widely recognised as the most prestigious in computing.
It marks another pinnacle for the Briton, who has already been knighted and named as one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century by Time magazine.
"It's a crowning achievement," Sir Tim said. "But I think the award is for the web as a project, and the massive international collaborative spirit of all that have joined me to help."
The honour comes with a prize of a million dollars (£800,000) funded by Google, one of many companies that made a fortune as a result of his efforts to make the internet more accessible.
Previous winners include Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, considered the "fathers of the internet", and the artificial intelligence pioneer John McCarthy.

Comments