The introduction of new legislation to cover e-commerce has been made necessary by advances in modern technology.

A draft Electronic Communications Bill was published in July as part of a package of measures by the government to lay the foundations for electronic commerce to flourish in the UK.

The legislation will aim to build confidence in trading electronically by protecting people's credit card and other personal details and sensitive commercial information.

The bill is expected to propose:

• New laws to put beyond doubt electronic signatures' admissibility in court.
  
• Measures to sweep away existing laws which insist on paper by allowing e-mail as an option.
  
• Measures to create trust in providers offering electronic signature and other cryptography services by ensuring that minimum standards of quality and service are met.
  
• New powers to enable law enforcement agencies to require the surrender of decryption keys or plain text of lawfully obtained material in response to a properly authorised written notice.

Civil liberties groups have been critical of powers over encryption and are against legislation which allows the authorities to serve a warrant or "decryption notice" on anyone they think "appears" to hold the key to coded data.