WhatsApp warns and Threatens to exit India Leave a comment

WhatsApp claimed that making it possible to trace messages back to their origin is unconstitutional and violates the right to privacy.
If WhatsApp – owned by Meta Inc. – is required to break message encryption in India, it will exit the market.
“We’ll go if we’re told to break encryption,” a lawyer representing the company said in court Wednesday.
Asked whether this demand had been made by governments elsewhere, the attorney responded: “There is no country with a rule like that. Not even Brazil. We don’t know what messages we might be asked for decryption, so we would have to store all of them from everybody… It could mean messages from millions of people over several years.”
The Delhi High Court was hearing arguments related to two petitions filed last month; both challenge new Information Technology Rules requiring platforms like WhatsApp remove certain posts within 36 hours as well as create tools enabling them identify who first shared content deemed offensive or against national security.
Why does this matter?
New Delhi wants social media giants including WhatsApp (which is used by about 400 million Indians each day) do more when someone uses these apps irresponsibly – especially during tense times such as religious riots.

Officials say rules are needed because sometimes misinformation spreads so quickly through cyberspace during such events that at least it’s possible for investigators afterwards to figure out who lit the fuse.

These regulations come shortly after New Delhi ordered Facebook and Twitter remove hundreds of posts it alleged were misleading or inflammatory ; the companies complied with most requests..

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.