Massachusetts appellate court to rule on compelled password disclosure of encrypted drive

A Massachusetts trial court, dealing with an encrypted drive in a criminal case, has asked the Massachusetts Appeals Court how to act. The question presented to the appellate court is:

Can the defendant be compelled pursuant to the Commonwealth’s proposed protocol to provide his key to seized encrypted digital evidence, despite the rights and protections provided by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article Twelve of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights?

The case is Commonwealth v. Gelfgatt, Suffolk Superior Court No. SUCR2010-10491. Read more here in an article by Tom Ralph, Chief of the Cybercrime Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office, published in the Cybercrime Newsletter, a publication of the National Association of Attorneys General and the National Center for Justice and the Rule of Law.

Cybercrime Review has extensively covered encryption issues. Click here for our archive on the topic.