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Whatsapp has its biggest market in India with more than 500 million users. Recently Whatsapp is facing some serious issues with the Indian government. Back in 2018, the Indian government proposed WhatsApp to make some software changes in favor of tracing the originator of a message. Last year this suggestion became the law. This new IT rule will allow providing greater control for authorities to moderate and even take down posts that are considered offensive.
However, many privacy and technology experts are informed that traceability breaks end-to-end encryption. And it would severely impact the privacy of billions of people who communicate digitally. Whatsapp also has not shown much interest in complying with these new IT rules. It stated that traceability will break end-to-end message encryption and violates human rights. And WhatsApp is committed to doing everything that it could to protect the privacy of people’s personal messages and privacy.
As a part of this, Whatsapp has filed a lawsuit in Delhi court against the government over the new IT rules for making traceability accessible. The lawsuit asks the Delhi high court to declare this new IT rule as a violation of privacy rights in India’s constitution. Because these new rules imply that social media companies identify the “first originator of information” whenever authorities need it.
Whatsapp argued on the 224th page of the court filing that the new IT rules were drafted by Modi’s IT ministry. Which will lead to a dangerous invasion of privacy and is unconstitutional. Based on reports it was seen by Reuters but not by the public.
Apart from this, an Indian government source told Reuters on Wednesday that WhatsApp could find a way to track originators of misinformation. Without breaking the end-to-end encryption. Unfortunately, Whatsapp court filing opposes it and says that it was not possible.
Along with WhatsApp, The Indian government ordered Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to take down some posts that were against Modi’s government. And how they are handling the coronavirus crisis. In addition to this, last week New Delhi complained that Twitter labeling some of its politician’s tweets as manipulated by the media. Previously Twitter refused to block accounts that criticized New Delhi and PM Modi. As a result, earlier this week Delhi police issued a notice to Twitter offices.
This is not the first time that Whatsapp and the Indian government have been involved in a court case. In fact, Whatsapp is still fighting a legal case filed by the Indian government in the same court. This case was filed over WhatsApp’s new privacy policy as New Delhi tries to get the Facebook-owned firm to withdraw the new terms. We have to wait and see how things will turn out for WhatsApp.
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