The country’s leading instant-messaging platform WhatsApp has made a fiery statement in the Delhi High Court that it will stop operating in India if it is forced to compromise on encryption of messages and calls. Advocate Tejas Karia, representing WhatsApp, emphasized that users of the platform value the privacy and security provided by its end-to-end encryption feature. During the court proceedings, Karia strongly stated that if WhatsApp was forced to break encryption, the company would have no option but to exit the Indian market.
The Delhi High Court, headed by Acting Chief Justice Manmohan Singh and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora, was addressing the petitions filed by WhatsApp and Meta (formerly Facebook). ) Rules, 2021. Rule 4(2) states that important social media intermediaries shall facilitate identification of the first originator of information on their platform when ordered by a court or competent authority should be provided. The rule has sparked a legal battle between tech giants and the Indian government, raising concerns over privacy rights and data security.
WhatsApp talked about leaving India
On behalf of WhatsApp, lawyer Karia in Delhi High Court told the court today that as a platform we are saying that if we are asked to break the encryption then we will leave from here. Explaining the company’s problems, the lawyer said that this provision would require WhatsApp to store millions of messages for many years, a requirement that does not exist anywhere else in the world. “We have to keep a whole chain and we do not know which messages we will be asked to decrypt. This means that millions of messages will have to be stored for many years.
This rule of IT does not exist anywhere in the world
During the hearing in the High Court, the bench accepted that all the parties will have to debate this matter. The court questioned whether such a law (IT rules) exists in any other country? On this the lawyer said, “There is no such rule anywhere in the world. “Even in Brazil, no such rule exists.” The court further said that the right to privacy is not absolute and a balance needs to be struck somewhere.
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