Tech: PGP upgrade announced

Encryption is a way of keeping your data safe from prying eyes. But all too often, it is complex and difficult to use and as a result, its takeup is significantly less than common sense would suggest.

And it is at the desktop where the concept is less implemented. Most servers use some form of encryption at some point in the process but in the case of desktop machines, the only commonly found encrypted data are passwords - and then only if the operating system recognises them as such.

And so, with the security of customer and commercial data becoming an ever greater issue, there are huge prizes to be one for the company that can make encryption quick and transparent to the user.

PGP started the mass-market encryption ball rolling more than a decade ago. And it remains the program many people first think of.

At that time, PGP was a free program. But it became a commercial program and there was rapid development of the product range.

Now, it appears to us that, unless you are an IT professional, even the product range is confusing.

The new announcement is not of a new product, but of a new version of the Encryption Platform. This is a concept we both understand and like. It's a kind of centralised management systems for all of the other PGP components that are deployed across the enterprise.

Anything that makes the whole idea simpler, and more transparent for the user, is a good thing.