U.K. PM To Take His Anti-Encryption Drum-Banging To Obama’s Doorstep

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron is evidently not done banging the anti-encryption drum in public yet despite being slammed by Internet security experts, startup investors and others earlier this week for appearing to suggest he wants to outlawstrong encryption.

The widespread interpretation of Cameronscomments as signifying an intention to banencryption resulted in government sourcesdoing somehasty re-spinningof his words.Rather, they said, this is aboutCameron chest-beating on counter terrorism and trying toapply political pressure on Internet companies to backdoor their own services to give government agencies access.

In other words if you can get Internet companies to stop using end-to-end encryption and/or co-operate on installingbackdoors into strong encryption, thentheres no need to actuallyban encryption because government can get its hands on the user data its after anyway.

Workaround, baby, workaround.

The PMis this weekinWashington D.C. for a long scheduled meeting with President Obama, but, in the wake of last weeks terror attacks in Paris, itlooks likely Cameron willuse the opportunity of a joint podium with POTUS to push fora united front to apply morepressure to Internet companies to perforate their own security in the name of counter-terrorism surveillance. Amping up the rhetoric abroad, as he has done at home.

Both the WSJ and The Guardian are today reporting, via their own government sources, that Cameron intends to lobby Obama on encryption workarounds and specifically to urge U.S. Internet companies to provide access to user datato U.K. security services.

The Guardian quotes a government source saying: The prime ministers objective here is to get the U.S. companies to cooperate with us more, to make sure that our intelligence agencies get the information they need to keep us safe. That will be his approach in the discussion with President Obama how can we work together to get them to cooperate more, what is the best approach to encourage them to do more.

Cameron and Obama have also today penned a joint column in The Times newspaper (available outside the paywall via Facebook), headlinedSecurity and prosperity go hand in hand an indication the two leadersare thinking broadly on the same page when it comes to counter-terrorism strategy.

TechCrunch understands thatcybersecurity will certainly be on the tech discussion agenda for the meeting, although, when asked directly, the Downing Street press office declined to provide any official information on the meetingin advance of a scheduledpress conference tomorrow - including declining to confirm whether Cameron will be directly lobbyingObama to lean on U.S. Internet companiesto soften theirstance on encryption.

U.K. security services have alreadylaid down some advanced counter-terror rhetoric against U.S. Internet companies. For instance last Novemberthe head of the GCHQ spy agency madea direct public appeal to U.S. Internet companies to co-operateand hand over data on users when asked to do so by U.K. intelligence agencies.

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U.K. PM To Take His Anti-Encryption Drum-Banging To Obama’s Doorstep