WhatsApp is fighting for the privacy of citizens of the world’s largest democracy. This week, the Facebook-owned messaging platform sued the Indian government in a bid to challenge new IT rules that ask messaging apps to trace the “first originator” of a message. Doing so could require WhatsApp to weaken its end-to-end encryption, revealing identities of the sender and potentially affecting the security of not only its more than 400 million users in India, but potentially billions of others worldwide.
While it is difficult to assess the possible outcomes of the lawsuit, it could potentially dictate the kind of communication technology and online safe spaces Indians would have available going forward, and could set precedent for what other governments would demand from not just WhatsApp but other secure messaging apps Complying with these rules would endanger the fundamental right to a person’s privacy, experts say, because undermining encryption for one would mean doing so for all. Traceability and end-to-end encryption cannot co-exist.
“This is an onerous obligation that severely undermines end-to-end encryption.”
Namrata Maheshwari, Technology Policy Advocate
India’s internet regulations for social media platforms, messaging apps, online media, and streaming video services were passed using an executive order in February. Platforms were given three months to comply, the deadline for which ended earlier this week. One of the new directives requires messaging platforms with over five million u ..
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