WhatsApp moves High Court against new digital rules

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 26

WhatsApp has moved the Delhi High Court challenging the Centre’s new digital rules that require the company to provide access to encrypted messages, saying it will break privacy protections.

Filed on Tuesday, the petition challenged the rules on the ground that mandating the service provider to identify the first originator of any message that undermined sovereignty of India went against the right to privacy, which has been declared a fundamental right by the Supreme Court.

Firm’s stance

WhatsApp says, “Requiring messages to trace chats is the equivalent of asking us to keep a fingerprint of every single message sent on WhatsApp. This would break end-to-end encryption and fundamentally undermines people’s right to privacy.”

The petition comes on the last day of the three-month period given to social media platforms to comply with the rules, non-compliance of which could effectively deprive the companies such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp of the legal protections for user-generated content.

The rules defined ‘’significant social media intermediaries’’ as those having more than 50 lakh registered users. They have been mandated to use automated processes to take down pornography.

Facebook and Google have maintained they were working towards complying with the new guidelines announced on February 25.

“Requiring messages to trace chats is the equivalent of asking us to keep a fingerprint of every single message sent on WhatsApp. This would break end-to-end encryption and fundamentally undermines people’s right to privacy,” WhatsApp said in a statement, adding that tracing messages would be “ineffective and highly susceptible to abuse”.