WhatsApp will leave India, if asked to break encryption

Rama Krishna Sangem

WhatsApp would rather leave India, than breaking its encrypted messages – both chatting and phone calls. This is what WhatsApp told the Delhi High Court on April 25 Thursday that if it is made to break encryption of messages, then the social message platform would exit India.

“As a platform, we are saying, if we are told to break encryption, then WhatsApp goes,” counsel for the platform told the bench of acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora.

WhatsApp said that people use its platform because end-to-end messages are encrypted, ensuring privacy. End-to-end encryption is a private communication system in which only communicating users can participate.

The court is hearing petitions filed by WhatsApp LLC and its parent company Facebook Inc (now Meta), challenging the 2021 Information Technology (IT) rules for social media intermediaries requiring the messaging app to trace chats and make provisions to identify the first originator of information, for hearing on August 14.

 

IT Rule 4(2) 

Rule 4(2) of IT Rules says that a significant social media intermediary that provides services like messaging shall allow the identification of the ‘the first originator’ of a message when an order to this effect is passed by a court or by the competent authority. WhatsApp told the court that the provision in question of IT Rules would require WhatsApp to store millions and millions of messages for a number of years, a requirement that exists nowhere else in the world.

“We will have to keep a complete chain and we don’t know which messages will be asked to be decrypted. It means millions and millions of messages will have to be stored for a number of years,” the platform told the court.

The lawyer, appearing for the platform, said the Rule under challenge goes beyond the parent Information Technology Act, which does not provide for breaking of encryption.

The bench, observing that the matter would have to be argued by the parties, asked him if the issue had been considered in any other country. “There is no such rule anywhere else in the world. Not even in Brazil,” he said.

Meanwhile, the central government’s standing counsel said the idea behind the Rule is to trace the originator of the message. Millions of WhatsApp users in India depend on the platform for their most of daily communication, right from messaging to phone calls and file sharing.

Rama Krishna Sangem

Ramakrishna chief editor of excel India online magazine and website

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WhatsApp will leave India, if asked to break encryption

Fri Apr 26 , 2024
Rama Krishna Sangem WhatsApp would rather leave India, than break its encrypted messages and phone calls. This is what the social media platform, told  Delhi […]
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Rama Krishna Sangem

Excel India national news magazine is a media startup founded and piloted by Rama Krishna Sangem, a Hyderabad based senior journalist with over three decade experience in the field of media, mostly in print journalism. His rich experience in reporting for both Telugu and English newspapers and heading a TV news channel and some online outfits will be of immense use to this venture. Excel India English news magazine seeks to fill the gap of analytical understanding to our readers who today are confronted with myriad media platforms. Our online version not only offers regular updates and commentary on happenings around us, but also gives larger stories not limited by space constraints of a print magazine. Excel India is ably run by a team of senior journalists committed to values and quality standards in the profession. We urge you all to support and guide us in this endeavour. Reach us at excelindiaweb123@gmail.com