U.S. Wins Limits on Data Scrambling Abroad

The Clinton administration scored a sizable victory in its battle to limit the use of data-scrambling technology abroad when the U.S. and 32 other nations agreed to restrict exports of such technology from their countries. The United States already imposes such controls, which U.S. software companies say put them at a disadvantage in world trade in the technology. The agreement, said administration officials, will help the companies compete with their counterparts abroad. The agreement calls for governments to let companies include more complex scrambling, or “encryption,” technology in the software products they export than do current U.S. regulations. As a result, U.S. industry spokesmen and privacy advocates said that the administration’s claims of benefit to the U.S. industry would not ring true until the U.S. policies are loosened. The agreement was signed in Vienna by members of the Wassenaar Arrangement, a group that coordinates export policies for munitions and so-called “dual-use” technologies that have both military and civilian use.