WhatsApp goes to court against India's IT rules 'undermining privacy'
WhatsApp on Tuesday
filed a legal challenge against the Indian government, protesting before the
Delhi High Court new IT rules that would require messaging services to trace
the origin of particular messages.
“Requiring messaging apps to “trace” chats is the equivalent of
asking us to keep a fingerprint of every single message sent on WhatsApp, which
would break end-to-end encryption and fundamentally undermines people’s right
to privacy," said a WhatsApp spokesperson.
"We have consistently joined civil society and experts around
the world in opposing requirements that would violate the privacy of our users.
In the meantime, we will also continue to engage with the Government of India
on practical solutions aimed at keeping people safe, including responding to
valid legal requests for the information available to us,” said the
spokesperson.
Under the recently notified Information Technology (Intermediary
Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021, social media
intermediaries with more than 5 million users and providing messaging services
will have to enable identification of the first originator of problematic
content that may harm the country's interests and several other provisions
described in the Rules.
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The social media intermediary will have to do this in response to
a judicial order passed by a court or by a competent authority under section 69
of the IT Act.
"Provided also that where the first originator of any
information on the computer resource of an intermediary is located outside the
territory of India, the first originator of that information within the
territory of India shall be deemed to be the first originator of the
information for the purpose of this clause," say the rule.
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