WhatsApp has filed lawsuit against the Indian government in an effort to block new rules that will lead to “mass surveillance” by compelling social media platforms to release private information about their users.
The company which is owned by Facebook, confirmed recently that the lawsuit has has been filed with the High Court in Delhi.
The lawsuit is aimed at stopping strict rules that are supposed to be effected in India.
Under the new rules, social media companies establish special roles in India to make them comply with local law, and to keep close contact with law enforcement every time.
Also, the new rules require that social media companies delete posts that exhibit “full or partial nudity.”
Meanwhile, the disagreement of WhatsApp with India is premised on the fact that the rule would need companies to trace the “first originator” of controversial messages or posts that go viral if authorities ask them to, a demand which would effectively put an end to any guarantee of user privacy by requiring Whatsapp to keep track of every message.
While talking to CNN Business, a company spokesperson said: “Requiring messaging apps to ‘trace’ chats is the equivalent of asking us to keep a fingerprint of every single message sent on WhatsApp, which would break end-to-end encryption and fundamentally undermines people’s right to privacy.
“We have consistently joined civil society and experts around the world in opposing requirements that would violate the privacy of our users.”
WhatsApp has its biggest market in India with 400 million user. In 2016, WhatsApp deployed end-to-end encryption in so that calls, messages, photos, videos and voice notes can only be shared with the receiver.
The company said if the new rules would go ahead, WhatsApp would have to maintain robust databases of each message.
While writing in a blog post about why the practice was opposed, WhatsApp disclosed that a government “that chooses to mandate traceability is effectively mandating a new form of mass surveillance.
“Traceability forces private companies to turn over the names of people who shared something even if they did not create it, shared it out of concern, or sent it to check its accuracy.”
The new regulations were announced in February few weeks after the government tried to force Twitter to bring down accounts it considered incendiary.
