Experts laud WhatsApp move, say all companies must unite for user privacy

NEW DELHI: Digital rights experts have said that WhatsApp’s move to legally challenge the recently introduced intermediary rules is “most significant” adding that every company which cares about

user privacy

should stand together to protect encrypted chats.


Technology website Medianama founder

Nikhil Pahwa

called the lawsuit the “most significant privacy case in India, ever since the

Right

to Privacy case”, which was heard by the Supreme Court. The SC, in a landmark judgment in 2017, had held privacy as a fundamental right protected under the Constitution.

Pahwa

added that in order to support traceability, WhatsApp will have to “rearchitect” the entire platform which would “potentially compromise all its users”, which should be unacceptable.

The Facebook-owned company has challenged the new guidelines, which dictate social media companies to track the “first originator” of any message that speeds misinformation. The rules would impact messages sent through messaging apps like WhatsApp,

Signal

and

Telegram

.

Rights activists have argued that tracking the first originator would break endto-end encryption and dilute user privacy. “WhatsApp has done what every company must do if they care about end to end encryption and privacy. The IT rules notified by the government are unconstitutional. In the garb of addressing misinformation and regulating technology companies, the government has been exceeding the powers granted through subordinate legislation and using it for political purposes as is evident from the recent Twitter fracas,” technology lawyer Mishi Choudhary told TOI.

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