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In the UK they've sidestepped this concern by making the refusal to decrypt an imprisonable offence: https://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investig...

Though of course it doesn't help if the owner of the device is unknown, as alluded to in the linked article.

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Couldn't they use other methods to figure out the owner of the device? EMEI data? Pull the SIM? Get the serial number & figure out who bought it that way? Hell, if you got that much you could pretty easily get phone records & the like via warrant.

I feel like they just wanted what was on the phone, rather than who owned it.

Doesn't this directly contradict the European "right to remain silent" [1]

[1]: Europe human rights court: http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/1996/3.html#para45

Perhaps, but it wouldn't be the only UK law to do so, for example section 2 the Criminal Justice Act 1987 requires disclosure to investigations by the Serious Fraud Office, and schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 also compels the detainee to answer any question asked. Both of these also under penalty of imprisonment and/or fine.

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