New Delhi: The legal battle between the Central government and social media platforms on privacy policy and over new IT rules, has taken a new turn with messaging app WhatsApp filing a lawsuit on Wednesday against the Indian government in the Delhi High Court.
The suit by the Facebook-owned platform argues that user privacy is in its DNA and requiring messaging apps to "trace" chats undermines people's right to privacy.
Meanwhile, 25 May (Tuesday) was the deadline set by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) for social media entities to comply with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules. The government has also warned that non-compliance would attract strict action.
The draft of the new Rules was announced on February 25.
As per the new rules, the social media platforms will also have to remove offending content within 36 hours after a government directive or a legal order, a provision to which the platforms have not responded with total refusal, but would want such cases to be exceptional and with sound legal basis.
The company said that it will in continue to engage with the government on finding a way out for keeping people safe," including responding to valid legal requests for the information available to us".
WhatsApp said it has sent a reply to the notice by MeitY after the ministry directed the Facebook-owned platform to withdraw its controversial user privacy policy.
News agency IANS quoted a WhatsApp spokesperson as saying that asking messaging apps to 'trace' chats is tantamount to asking them to keep a fingerprint of every single message sent on WhatsApp.
The firm believes that such an act would break end-to-end encryption, a strength that WhatsApp sells hard to its customers. "We have consistently joined civil society and experts around the world in opposing requirements that would violate the privacy of our users," the spokesperson added.
The Indian government was yet to react to Wednesday's lawsuit.
It may be recalled that the tussle between the tech giants including Twitter, WhatsApp and Facebook and the Union government has led to even cops raiding Twitter offices in the pandemic earlier this week over the ToolKit controversy.
In a related development, WhatsApp has also gone ahead with implementing its controversial user privacy policy from May 15, clearly stating that "we will maintain this approach until at least the forthcoming PDP (personal data protection) law comes into effect".
When the concept of 'traceability' which the government insisted on for tracking the identity and details of those posting messages, was first mooted, several organisations had objected to it raising concerns of privacy of Indian users. However, the new IT rules contain penal provisions for non-compliance.
Critics of the government decision cite that traceability if applied in a blanket fashion, would end the era of user privacy, in addition to the government invoking it to go after individuals posting ideas and messages unpalatable to the ruling establishment.
Whats App is also currently contesting similar legislation in the Supreme Court of Brazil.
"We also do not believe traceability can be imposed in a way that cannot be spoofed or modified, leading to new ways for people to be framed for things they did not say or do. Such massive data collection also makes messaging platforms inherently less secure by opening up more avenues for hacking," WhatsApp had said earlier.