The Electronic Communications Act 2000 (c.7) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that: Had provisions to regulate the provision of cryptographic services in the UK (ss.1-6); and Confirms the legal status of electronic signatures (ss.7-10).
The United Kingdom government had come to the conclusion that encryption, encryption services and electronic signatures would be important to e-commerce in the UK.
By 1999, however, only the security services still hankered after key escrow. So a "sunset clause" was put in the bill. The Electronic Communications Act 2000 gave the Home Office the power to create a registration regime for encryption services. This was given a five-year period before it would automatically lapse, which eventually happened in May 2006.