Under US law, computer software and hardware cannot be exported if it contains encryption that the NSA cannot break. The FBI has not let up on efforts to ban products on which it cannot eavesdrop. The amendment was adopted by several congressional committees but the Senate preferred a weaker variant. While the key escrow approach was being pushed in the USA, Washington had approached foreign organisations and states. Led by Germany and the Scandinavians, the EU has been generally distrustful of key escrow technology.
Some European countries have or are contemplating independent restrictions.
France had a long-standing ban on the use of any cryptography to which the government does not have access. However, a 1996 law, modifying the existing system, allows a system of tiers du confidence , although it has not been implemented because of EU opposition. In 1997, the Conservative government in the UK introduced a proposal creating a system of trusted third parties. The debate over encryption and the conflicting demands of security and privacy are bound to continue. That puts the US government and some of the world's largest corporations, notably Microsoft, on a collision course.