I think the general opinion from the &#x27;cryptowars&#x27; in the 90s is that there is no such scheme that does&#x27;t cripple the actual security of encryption.<p>Key escrow came up back then though I don&#x27;t think it included needing multiple keys in order to decrypt - not sure if that&#x27;s mathematically possible or if there&#x27;s another reason that never came up.  I suppose to the government that&#x27;s not much different than still needing to compel individuals for the key.<p>Your point about companies is interesting since things like iMessage could be MITM currently anyway to get unencrypted content for government requests.  I think most people don&#x27;t necessarily trust the company behavior here though and given the government&#x27;s recently revealed behavior with National Security Letters and secret, massive, unwarranted data collection I don&#x27;t think they should get a pass.  I&#x27;d rather side on the power structure unable to collect some of the information even if they&#x27;re unable to investigate.<p>I think fundamentally introducing multiple ways to get keys takes a secure system and makes it insecure - the access no longer rests on one individual&#x27;s knowledge.  In general I think that&#x27;s a bad idea - it also doesn&#x27;t prevent people who want to actually encrypt their information from doing so (it just harms the regular public and dumber criminals).