EFF and Open Rights Group Defend the Right to Publish Open Source Software to the UK Government
EFF and Open Rights Group today submitted formal comments to the
British Treasury, urging restraint in applying anti-money-laundering
regulations to the publication of open-source software.The UK government sought public feedback on proposals to update its
financial regulations pertaining to money laundering and terrorism in
alignment with a larger European directive. The consultation asked for
feedback on applying onerous customer due diligence regulations to the
cryptocurrency space as well as what approach the government should take
in addressing “privacy coins” like Zcash and Monero. Most worrisome,
the government also asked “whether the publication of open-source
software should be subject to [customer due diligence] requirements.”We’ve seen these kind of attacks on the publication of open source
software before, in fights dating back to the 90s, when the Clinton
administration attempted
to require that anyone merely publishing cryptography source code
obtain a government-issued license as an arms dealer. Attempting to
force today’s open-source software publishers to follow financial
regulations designed to go after those engaged in money laundering is
equally obtuse.In our comments, we describe the breadth of free, libre, and open
source software (FLOSS) that benefits the world today across industries
and government institutions. We discuss how these regulatory proposals
could have large and unpredictable consequences not only for the
emerging technology of the blockchain ecosystem, but also for the FLOSS
software ecosystem at large. As we stated in our comments:If the UK government was to determine that open source
software publication should be regulated under money-laundering
regulations, it would be unclear how this would be enforced, or how the
limits of those falling under the regulation would be determined.
Software that could, in theory, provide the ability to enable
cryptocurrency transactions, could be modified before release to remove
these features. Software that lacked this capability could be quickly
adapted to provide it. The core cryptographic algorithms that underlie
various blockchain implementations, smart contract construction and
execution, and secure communications are publicly known and relative
trivial to express and implement. They are published, examined and
improved by academics, enthusiasts, and professionals alike…The level of uncertainty this would provide to FLOSS use and
provision within the United Kingdom would be considerable. Such
regulations would burden multiple industries to attempt to guarantee
that their software could not be considered part of the infrastructure
of a cryptographic money-laundering scheme.Moreover, source code is a form of written creative expression, and
open source code is a form of public discourse. Regulating its
publication under anti-money-laundering provisions fails to honor the
free expression rights of software creators in the United Kingdom, and
their collaborators and users in the rest of the world.Source code is a form of written creative expression, and open source code is a form of public discourse.
EFF is monitoring the regulatory and legislative reactions to new blockchain technologies, and we’ve recently spoken out about misguided ideas for banning cryptocurrencies and overbroad regulatory responses to decentralized exchanges.
Increasingly, the regulatory backlash against cryptocurrencies is being
tied to overbroad proposals that would censor the publication of
open-source software, and restrict researchers’ ability to investigate,
critique and communicate about the opportunities and risks of
cryptocurrency.This issue transcends controversies surrounding blockchain tech and
could have significant implications for technological innovation,
academic research, and freedom of expression. We’ll continue to watch
the proceedings with HM Treasury, but fear similar anti-FLOSS proposals
could emerge—particularly as other member states of the European Union
transpose the same Anti-Money Laundering Directive into their own laws.