This is an opinion editorial by Christopher Allen, founder and executive director of the Blockchain Commons.
*Quotes from this article stem from sources here and here.
Increasingly, attorneys in the United States are asking courts to force the disclosure of cryptographic private keys as part of discovery or other pre-trial motions, and increasingly courts are acceding to those demands.
Though this is a relatively recent phenomenon, it’s part of a larger problem of law enforcement seeking back doors to cryptography that goes back at least to the U.S. government’s failed introduction of the Clipper Chip in 1993.
Unfortunately, today’s attacks on private keys in the courtroom have been more successful, creating an existential threat to digital assets, data and other information protected by digital keys. That danger arises from a fundamental disconnect between this practice and the realities of technologies that leverage public-key cryptography for security: private-key disclosure can cause irreparable harm, including the loss of funds and the distortion of digital identities.
As a result, we need to support legislation that will protect digital keys while allowing courts to access information and assets in a way that better recognizes those realities. The private-key disclosure law currently being considered in Wyoming is an excellent example of the sort of legislation that we could put forth and advocate for in order to maintain the proper protection for our digital assets and identities.
Wyoming Senate Filing 2021-0105
“No person shall be compelled to produce a private key or make a private key known to any other person in any civil, administrative, legislative or other proceeding in this state that relates to a digital asset, other interest or right to which the private key provides access unless a public key is unavailable or unable to disclose the requisite information with respect to the digital asset, other interest or right. This paragraph shall not be…
