A judge tells the National Crime Agency to use the proper procedure if it wants the suspect's password The U.K.’s National Crime Agency (NCA) failed in its attempt to use what critics described as a legal backdoor to force a suspected hacker to provide the decryption key for data on multiple devices.Lauri Love, 31, was arrested by U.K. authorities in 2013 under suspicion of hacking into computers belonging to multiple U.S. government agencies including NASA, the FBI, the Federal Reserve, and the Army.Love is the subject of separate indictments in courts in New Jersey, New York, and Virginia and faces extradition to the U.S. An extradition hearing is scheduled for the end of June.When Love was arrested in 2013, the U.K. police also seized electronic equipment from his home, including two laptops, a hard disk drive, and an SD card. Love was later released, and the NCA decided not to press any charges in the U.K., but kept some of his devices holding encrypted data. Love wants those devices back and has filed a civil application under the U.K.’s Police (Property) Act 1897 to recover them. During his application’s pre-trial proceedings, the NCA asked the judge to use the court’s “good case management” powers to direct Love to provide the encryption key or password for the data stored on three hardware devices.In the U.K., police have the power to request passwords and decryption keys from suspects under section 49 of Part III of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA). Failure to comply with such requests can be prosecuted and carries a prison sentence. However, RIPA also has safeguards, including human rights ones, for recipients of section 49 notices. In fact, the NCA did serve a RIPA notice on Love in February 2014 requesting that he provide the password to decrypt the data. Love declined, saying that he had no information to give, and the NCA decided not to enforce the notice.District Judge Nina Tempia declined the NCA’s new request.“After reading the papers and hearing from the parties, I am not granting the application because in order to obtain the information sought the correct procedure to be used, as the NCA did two and a half years ago, is under section 49 RIPA, with the inherent [Human Rights Act] safeguards incorporated therein,” Tempia, of the Magistrate’s Court, said in her ruling on Tuesday.The case is important because had the judge accepted the NCA’s request to order Love to produce the decryption key, it would have set a dangerous precedent, allowing police in the U.K. to bypass the few protections that exist for suspects to protect their passwords, some privacy advocates said.“By requesting a direction as part of the civil application, the National Crime Agency is seeking to sidestep the RIPA scheme and effectively circumvent … safeguards and the protections of the Code of Practice,” legal journalist David Allen Green said in a blog post.The ruling has no direct bearing on Love’s extradition proceedings but might complicate the efforts of U.S. prosecutors if they counted on the NCA recovering evidence from Love’s devices. There’s a parallel case in the U.S., where the FBI tried to force Apple to decrypt a seized iPhone using the provisions of a 1789 law called the All Writs Act. Critics argued the law was not intended to be used in this way. Related content news Multibillion-dollar cybersecurity training market fails to fix the supply-demand imbalance Despite money pouring into programs around the world, training organizations have not managed to ensure employment for professionals, while entry-level professionals are finding it hard to land a job By Samira Sarraf Oct 02, 2023 6 mins CSO and CISO CSO and CISO CSO and CISO news Royal family’s website suffers Russia-linked cyberattack Pro-Russian hacker group KillNet took responsibility for the attack days after King Charles condemned the invasion of Ukraine. By Michael Hill Oct 02, 2023 2 mins DDoS Cyberattacks feature 10 things you should know about navigating the dark web A lot can be found in the shadows of the internet from sensitive stolen data to attack tools for sale, the dark web is a trove of risks for enterprises. Here are a few things to know and navigate safely. By Rosalyn Page Oct 02, 2023 13 mins Cybercrime Security news ShadowSyndicate Cybercrime gang has used 7 ransomware families over the past year Researchers from Group-IB believe it's likely the group is an independent affiliate working for multiple ransomware-as-a-service operations By Lucian Constantin Oct 02, 2023 4 mins Hacker Groups Ransomware Cybercrime Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe