Not only across the world, but also in our country, WhatsApp – the instant messaging platform in the past few years has made people in this country virtually forget the option of simple text messaging. WhatsApp currently has more than 500 million active users in India, for whom they often bring new features. But despite all this, it is sometimes heard that the platform may be banned in India or that the central government is trying to crack down on it. In this case, at the end of this April, recently, such a topic has started again, and this time WhatsApp itself has said that the company may stop its app in India.
WhatsApp asked the court to shut down the app
Recently, WhatsApp, while directly hearing a case in the Delhi High Court, said that if necessary, they will stop the service in the country. But if you know the real reason behind saying this, you can be proud as a user of the platform! They have repeatedly said that the company owned by Meta does not want to compromise the privacy of its users. And yet they have said big things like closing the app in this context – WhatsApp has made it clear to the court that if there is any way to break their end-to-end encryption of messages protection system in India, then they will close their app here. will do
In this regard, the statement of advocate Tejas Kariya, representing WhatsApp, surprised everyone. Karia, before a bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora, said WhatsApp would withdraw if asked to break the platform's encryption. Let us inform you that all these things came up in the court during the hearing of the petition filed against Section 4(2) of Information Technology Act 2021. This clause was challenged by Meta and now the court is judging the company's side.
In fact, the said technology rule requires the social media platform to keep the information about the source of a message, i.e. who is sharing it for the first time, with the company so that it can get timely updates on the matter if necessary. Even government lawyer Kirtiman Singh said – India is the biggest market for WhatsApp with hundreds of millions of users. So having a record of company messages in such situations is mandatory, especially in today's turbulent times.
No other country in the world has made such a claim
In this context, a Delhi High Court bench, Tejas Karia, asked whether any country in the world had made such a claim about WhatsApp's encryption system. In response, he clearly stated that no country other than India, not even Brazil, has made this demand to the company. In that case, Karia told the court that if WhatsApp accepts this rule, they will have to store millions of messages for many years, which is not a trivial matter. All in all, where the water is, now to see!
What is end-to-end encryption?
WhatsApp also provides end-to-end encryption for messages, media and now chat backup for privacy and security of its users. By doing this, no one other than the user or even the company itself can access them. As a result, secrets remain secrets.
