Moving The Encryption Policy Conversation Forward

The group behind this paper—including former government officials, business representatives, privacy and civil rights advocates, law enforcement experts, and computer scientists—came together believing that more common ground is attainable and that the discussion can be best honed through specific, honest, and open-minded discussion among diverse perspectives. Our goals are: (1) to engage in and promote a more pragmatic and constructive debate on the benefits and challenges of the increasing use of encryption; (2) to identify specific areas where greater common ground may be possible; and (3) to propose potentially more fruitful ways to evaluate the societal impact, including both benefits and risks, of any proposed approaches that address the impasse over law enforcement access to encrypted data. We should highlight that we approach this issue from the point of view of stakeholders in the United States and discuss our framework for evaluating approaches in the U.S. context with policymakers at the national level as the target audience.