It seems there are some disagreements between Indian government and social media app WhatsApp, with the Facebook-owned company maintaining that ‘traceability’ will undermine end-to-end encryption.

The Government, on the other hand, is firm on providing for tracing origins of fake messages, which it has communicated to the company.

“Building traceability would undermine end-to-end encryption and the private nature of WhatsApp, creating the potential for serious misuse. WhatsApp will not weaken the privacy protections we provide,” said a spokesperson at WhatsApp.

The company has also clarified that it has not made any commitment to change where it stores its data to provide messaging service. The focus is on educating people about misinformation and help keep people safe, it added.

However, senior officials at Ministry of Electronics and IT said the company should continue to explore technical innovations whereby in case of large- scale circulation of provocative and nefarious messages leading to violence and crime, the origin can be ascertained.

“We have noted the content of the response from WhatsApp. While we appreciate some of the assurances given, some other aspects are also important, including a more firm assurance of compliance with the Indian laws, establishment of Grievance Officer with wide network, and an Indian corporate entity subject to Indian laws be set up in defined time-frame,” a senior government official told BusinessLine .

According to another official, the Ministry stands with the statements made by the IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, after meeting WhatsApp CEO Chris Daniels, on Tuesday.

“I have suggested three points. WhatsApp must have a grievance officer in India; the company must be compliant with Indian laws; and thirdly, since WhatsApp is becoming important in India’s digital story, it must have a proper corporate entity located in India,” Prasad had said after meeting Daniels.

He had said the Indian government would not appreciate a scenario wherein any problem/ reason is “answerable to America only”. “I have been assured that that all these three things will be followed,” he had added.

‘Technical solutions’

Recently, MeitY had also written to the Department of Telecom to explore ‘technical solutions’ to curb specific instances of misuse. However, the government’s intention is not to block such platforms.

“... misuse is small part of it, we cannot go around blocking the whole platform. The idea is to evolve effective grievance redressal...targeted prevention or corrective action to be taken in those kinds of cases,” Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan told reporters on the sidelines of a conference here.

Sundararajan was responding to queries over the DoT recently seeking industry’s views on technical measures that can be adopted for blocking mobile apps like Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram, in situations where national security and public order were under threat.

She said that technical solutions such as analysis of metadata, Artificial Intelligence and others allowed identification of mischievous messages treading unusual patterns.

“So a lot of these solutions have to do with technology but it cannot be blocking of all apps. That is not intent at all...we should be able to go in and take corrective actions...you can’t have all or nothing approach,” she added.

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