7 March 2016 – Employees of companies in France that refuse to decrypt data for police can go to prison for five years under new legislation from conservative legislators. The punishment for refusing to hand over access to encrypted data is a five year jail sentence and $380,000 fine.
Telecom companies would face their own penalties, including up to two years in jail.
M. Pierre Lellouche, a French Republican, singled out American encryption in particular:
“They deliberately use the argument of public freedoms to make money knowing full well that the encryption used to drug traffickers, to serious [criminals] and especially to terrorists. It is unacceptable that the state loses any control over encryption and, in fact, be the subject of manipulation by U.S. multinationals.”
