UK government changes to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Bill have done little to placate opposition to the legislation.

The Home Office has made a number of amendments - among them a requirement for law enforcement agencies to accept, in most cases, plain text versions of intercepted messages. This contrasts with the Bill in its original form, which would have compelled individuals to hand over encryption keys.

"We said we would take reasonable criticisms on board as far as we could do so, and engage actively with industry," said Home Office minister Lord Bassam of Brighton. He said the rule would be "plain text first - extra tests if keys are required".

The changes also include requiring the police to serve requests for keys whenever possible on company directors, and not employees. But the main thrust of the legislation - allowing police or security services with a warrant to intercept electronic messages - remains. So far there has been no government commitment to covering the full cost to ISPs of installing any monitoring equipment.

Meanwhile, concern over the Bill's impact increases. The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has written to Home Office minister Charles Clarke demanding changes. Nigel Hickson, of the CBI's ebusiness group, told Computing that as the proposals stands, non-ISPs - for example, companies using the web to communicate with customers, and banks operating online banking services - could potentially be asked to add black boxes to their networks.

First published in Computing