#WhatsApp is taking the Indian government to court over the traceability clause in the new IT Rules 2021.The new IT rules include a traceability clause that requires #socialmedia platforms to locate “the first originator of the information” if required by authorities.
In its plea, it is learnt #WhatsApp is invoking the 2017 Justice KS Puttaswamy vs Union Of India case to argue that the traceability provision is unconstitutional and against people’s fundamental right to #privacy as underlined by the SC decision indianexpress.com/article/techno…
It should be noted that this rule will impact most messaging apps such as #Signal, #Telegram, Snapchat, Wire and others. Signal is completely end-to-end encrypted (E2E) and, in fact, WhatsApp relies on the Signal protocol for its own encryption. 
#WhatsApp plea states that the court should declare the traceability clause as “unconstitutional” and should not allow it to come into force. It is also challenging the clause which puts “criminal liability” on its employees for non compliance, it is learnt.
The company has issued a detailed blog post explaining why traceability will not work. A #WhatsApp spokesperson said that the requirement to ‘trace’ chats would be the “equivalent of asking us to keep a fingerprint of every single message sent on WhatsApp.”
In the blog post, #WhatsApp says it is all for “reasonable and proportionate regulations”, but cannot support “eroding privacy for everyone, violating human rights, and putting innocent people at risk.” bit.ly/3yDJ08i
Why is WhatsApp against finding the originator of a message?
End-to-end #encryption ensures that no one can read the message, except for the sender and the receiver. This includes #WhatsApp itself. Nor does the app keep a log of who is sending what message and to whom.
End-to-end #encryption ensures that no one can read the message, except for the sender and the receiver. This includes #WhatsApp itself. Nor does the app keep a log of who is sending what message and to whom.
But why can’t #WhatsApp impose traceability? What is the harm, even if it has to rely on ‘fingerprinting’ techniques?
The post says in order “to trace even one message, services would have to trace every message”, because “there is no way to predict which message a government would want to investigate in the future”.
Read the detailed explainer here: indianexpress.com/article/explai…
Read the detailed explainer here: indianexpress.com/article/explai…
“The Government of India is committed to ensure the Right of #Privacy to all its citizens but at the same time it is also the responsibility of the government to maintain law and order and ensure national security,” IT Minister said
indianexpress.com/article/techno…
indianexpress.com/article/techno…
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