
Ask HN: Where should a UK-based company move to if encryption is outlawed? - throwawayblwBz
Throwaway account for probably-obvious reasons. We would be grateful if people avoided speculating about who this is in the comments :-)<p>We&#x27;re a UK-based PaaS. About 90% of our customers are from outside the UK.<p>The party most likely to form the government after the upcoming election here is strongly averse to encryption.  Although it remains to be seen what, if any, legislation they will actually enact if they get in, we need to do contingency planning. The worst-case scenario (which, to be clear, we think is very unlikely) is that they might pass laws that would mean we would not be able to offer a service with sufficient security for our international customers.<p>In this - again, we think unlikely - event, we&#x27;d either have to close the business, as we can&#x27;t keep going on our UK revenue only, or we&#x27;d have to move to another country.<p>Our question for HN is: which country would it be best to move to? It would need to be one with no crazy laws around encryption (and no obvious political rumblings that it might move in that direction), and an immigration system that would let us in. Ideally it would also be a nice place to live :-)<p>Thanks in advance for any suggestions!<p>[edit] By &quot;political rumblings&quot;, this is the kind of thing we&#x27;re worried about, coming from the EU: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theregister.co.uk&#x2F;2017&#x2F;03&#x2F;30&#x2F;ec_push_encryption_backdoors&#x2F;
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throwawaymanbot
You should go to Ireland. Completely Different jurisdiction. Still in the EU.
Close enough so you can go back and forth between The UK and Ireland.

If you contact idaireland @ ida .ie, they may have some relocation help
available to avail off.

PS, there is an update at the bottom of that register article about backdoors.
The EU is NOT requiring them.

"A spokesperson from the EC got in touch to say that Jourová's words had been
misinterpreted and there is no plan to introduce legislation covering
encryption. The proposed laws will instead cover faster access to material
held in the cloud in different jurisdictions. Material that, presumably, they
expect to be unencrypted"

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gpresot
Consider Switzerland. Proton Mail which basically has a business model founded
on privacy and encryption , uses this location as a competitive advantage.
Switzerland has some of the strictest privacy and confidentiality laws (all
those private banks and secret bank accounts needed them :) ). Zurich has a
good tech scene apparently (Google has an engineering center there) and ETH
and EPFL provide excellent talent. Downside is cost. Cost of living is
extremely high and salaries have to match that (I think salaries for
developers are substantially higher than in London). Some companies set up HQ
here and then keep bulk of people in Berlin or other location (e.g.
Getyourguide.com )

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ignasl
Probably Berlin. Vilnius or Tallinn could be interesting choices because of
friendly business climate, lower taxes, competent and cheap talent, not far
away, good tech culture and basically 0% chance that someone would try to
outlaw your business (Germany probably has a bit higher chance but I guess
it's also not that high). I think US do have some restrictions about exporting
encryption to some (all?) foreign countries so you better look closer into
that before making a decision. P.S. Stockholm also could be a good place. It's
just quite expensive.

~~~
throwawayblwBz
Vilnius and Tallinn are definitely highly tempting, just from the simplicity
of getting set up over there from a business registration standpoint (at least
in Tallinn, not quite so sure about Vilnius). There are a few concerns about
Russia's attitude to the Baltics, though - probably overblown in the press
over here, but we'd need to research.

Berlin - yes, definitely a tempting option.

~~~
threesixandnine
Very overblown. Almost histerical paranoia. Even people in Vilnius are not so
afraid of Russia as people here in the UK.

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kevinbowman
Amsterdam? It's got quite a tech culture, and is only 30-60 mins' flight from
most of the UK. I don't know what the political stance is on tech-sensitive
issues, though.

~~~
throwawayblwBz
Pretty solid, as far as we can tell:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35251429](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35251429)

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ciaran23
Dublin, ireland. Huge tech culture, lots of highly skilled employees

~~~
throwawayblwBz
Yes, that's definitely high on the list. Some of us have friends and family
over there, and of course there's no need to learn another language, which
helps.

~~~
aosaigh
Also low corporation tax rate and a land border with the UK (I'm surprised
it's so low down on the page)

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jrs95
I'm not sure on how difficult it would be to move to the U.S., but there's a
lot of underemployed tech talent in Columbus, Ohio, and we have a pretty low
cost of living too. I'm pretty confident we won't have any encryption bans any
time soon, we have too many giant corporations that would be vehemently
opposed to it.

~~~
throwawayblwBz
Thanks! Sorting out visas etc is definitely a concern for the US, but that's a
good point about encryption. It's hard to imagine Google and Facebook sitting
quiet while bad stuff happened in that area.

~~~
roryisok
Google and Facebook haven't had much effect on the "bad stuff" from the last
six months. I wouldn't be confident about their ability to influence
encryption legislation, since they haven't been able to change the
administration's mind on immigration, climate change or net neutrality so far.

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cpncrunch
Canada. It's English speaking, close to the USA, generally very liberal,
tolerant and safe (certainly compared to the USA and UK), good economy,
amazing lifestyle.

So far there are no encryption laws in Canada, and nothing on the horizon,
although you never know what could happen in future (if we get another idiot
like Stephen Harper in power).

[https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/why-canada-
isnt-h...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/why-canada-isnt-having-
a-rigorous-debate-over-encryption/article28859991/)

~~~
throwawayblwBz
Where in Canada, though? Vancouver seems to be where everyone goes, but from
what I've heard, that's led to a property boom almost as crazy as London's...

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cpncrunch
I live on Vancouver Island, near Nanaimo. Prices are much more reasonable,
it's a beautiful place to live, there are quite a few startups here, and it's
just a 15 min floatplane ride to downtown Vancouver or Victoria.

[http://business.financialpost.com/management/nanaimo-
quietly...](http://business.financialpost.com/management/nanaimo-quietly-
builds-itself-into-a-tech-startup-hub)

Only problem might be immigration, but the Start-up Visa Program might be an
option:

[http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/start-
up/ind...](http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/start-up/index.asp)

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everytimewe
If you want to stay close to the UK and outside of EU, I guess Switzerland or
Iceland make most sense for this type of business. Otherwise you could move to
Americas, South Africa or Asia.

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gonvaled
Why “outside EU“? Not an stated requirement.

You could as well say “and move to a country starting with P“ ...

Specially considering that UK is in the EU.

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CarolineW
Article 50 has been triggered, and if the present government is re-elected -
and even if not - the UK will most likely be out of the EU in 2 years.

~~~
gonvaled
Lots of assumptions.

~~~
roryisok
You think the UK will stay on the EU? Explain

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sr2
I keep seeing Seychelles[0] popping up everytime I research offshore hosting
providers. I don't know why this is. I think it's one of those rare countries
where you can't simply subpoena a hosting provider and ask for specific data /
business records. I'm not sure if this helps with doing illegal crypto
programming[1], but I do know in the early crypto wars people had to travel
far and wide to weird countries to do their programming.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seychelles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seychelles)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_the_import_of_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_the_import_of_cryptography)

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iSloth
Isle of Man? Not subject to UK law, 0% Corporation Tax, still physically very
close.

~~~
throwawayblwBz
Hmm, now that's an interesting thought. Maybe the Channel Islands would work
too?

~~~
iSloth
Yeh - Generally you would find each of the Channel Islands has its own
attraction, aimed at either Business, People or Tourists.

Isle of Man (disclaimer, I live there) is definitely wired up to attract new
businesses, through things like the Taxation and Government assistance.

However I've seen some business people move from the Isle of Man to
Jersey/Guernsey, with the knowledge it would cost them more, but you can't buy
sunshine yet!...

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confounded
If you wanted a swing in the opposite direction, Iceland has the best privacy
and data laws. I get the impression their economy will increasingly reflect
this.

However, it also has plenty of challenges, from population/talent size, costs,
weather, etc. From a cursory look, immigration looks relatively easy if you
have a job.

~~~
throwawayblwBz
Costs have been the biggest worry when looking there. Not sure about bandwidth
either...? IIRC the Eve Online guys had to do their server hosting in the UK
for that reason.

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mhkool
The whole issue also depends on your customers. If your customers are in
countries where the governments are speculating about backdoors the business
may fail since it does not help when the business is in a safe area but the
customers not.

Why don't you start a new political party ?

~~~
throwawayblwBz
That's a great point. Our customers are from all over the world - the US is
the largest single country, but there are lots in the EU, India, Japan,
Australasia, Latin America, Africa...

We'd love to start a new political party, but doing that at the same time as a
startup would be, um, hard.

~~~
laurentl
Definitely look at your customer base, and maybe talk to them in terms of
privacy expectations and which jurisdiction they're comfortable with. From
what I understand of your post the issue is not only encryption legislation
itself but more generally if/how the government can access your data (and your
customers').

If you're banking for EU customers, then anywhere in the EU should be fine
once the GDPR comes into effect (2018 IIRC). If you want to accommodate a
broader base and/or have customers with stringent privacy requirements,
Switzerland is a good option.

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tonyedgecombe
>Although it remains to be seen what, if any, legislation they will actually
enact if they get in

This is the key point, there is quite a lot of scaremongering on the internet
and in the media. To me it looks extremely unlikely we will get anything that
will result in damage to our ability to do business from within the UK.

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toomuchtodo
Dublin or Barcelona.

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throwawayblwBz
Thanks! Elsewhere in the EU - soon to be, "in the EU" :-( - is definitely
something we're considering, but this is giving us pause:
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/30/ec_push_encryption_...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/30/ec_push_encryption_backdoors/)

~~~
logiclabs
Did you see the correction at the bottom?

Subversion of E2E encryption would likely be in conflict with the GDPR:
[https://tresorit.com/blog/encryption-gdpr-
compliance/](https://tresorit.com/blog/encryption-gdpr-compliance/)

~~~
throwawayblwBz
Thanks, that's useful to know. So that would suggest that in the EU we
wouldn't even need to worry about the national government trying to ban
encryption, because it would be shut down by the European courts.

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garrettheaver
Ireland

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throwawayblwBz
Nice idea. Some of us have friends and family over there, and of course it's a
great place.

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unixhero
Iceland

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throwawayblwBz
Thanks! Presumably any country with Pirate Party members of parliament is
unlikely to restrict the Internet too much...

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kiqi
the moon or outer space?

~~~
throwawayblwBz
Excellent plan. Will get on the phone to Elon Musk tomorrow.

~~~
atmosx
Sounds like a great idea for a startup!

Imagine a group of young people, trying to raise capital to start a data haven
in a remote Sultanate or Principality. Who knew _that_ could be an important
competitive advantage?

You could call the startup "Epiphyte Corporation" :-D

