Man gaoled for refusing to reveal password

by Simon Aughton on October 6, 2010

A 19-year old man has been gaoled for 16 weeks after he refused to reveal the password to his computer.

Police arrested Oliver Drage of Freckleton, Lancashire, in May last year, as part of an investigation into child sexual exploitation. They seized his PC couldn’t gain access because Drage had protected it with 50-character password, The Guardian reports.

He was convicted of failing to disclose an encryption key, an offence under the 2000 Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

“Computer systems are constantly advancing and the legislation used here was specifically brought in to deal with those who are using the internet to commit crime,” said Det Sergeant Neil Fowler of Lancashire Police.

He said that the sentence indicated how seriously the courts are taking the offence.

Meanwhile, police are still trying to crack Drage’s password.

Tagged as: legal, security

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  • Mike_Brown2

    Irrespective of what the investigation was about, with that piece of legislature, “Guilty until Proven Innocent” goes right out of the window! As a retired police officer, even I cringe at that. Can you imagine trying that one in the US with the 5th Amendment.

  • Mike_Brown2

    Doh! Did I write, “Guilty until Proven Innocent”? Shows you how annoyed I was! Of course I meant, “Innocent until Proven Guilty”….
    Especially as the guy had no previous convictions for anything… Hell, you could commit a real crime and get a slapped wrist but don’t supply the evidence to convict yourself (if there is indeed any in this case) and you are immediately thrown behind bars. And before anyone says that if you have nothing to hide what’s the problem, the problem is one of principle and privacy, something now seriously lacking in a country where you can’t walk from one end of a street to the other without being on countless cameras…

  • Nijinsky

    Perhaps Oliver Drage thinks it’s better to get locked up for 16 weeks than to divulge his password and get locked up for two years with a paedophile conviction.

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