New Delhi, News Agency: WhatsApp has told the Delhi High Court that if the new IT rules require us to crack encryption to trace the original source of a message, we will instead cease doing business in India.
According to Rule 4(2) of the Information Technology Rules 2021, all messaging services are required to disclose the source and address of the relevant message if ordered by a court or competent authority. WhatsApp has challenged this rule in the Delhi High Court. In its petition, WhatsApp has said that this rule is unconstitutional and non-compliance of this rule cannot constitute any criminal act.
To find out where the message came from, the company has to break the end-to-end encryption. It would be a breach of privacy and freedom of expression. Elaborating on the issue in the petition, WhatsApp's lawyer Tejas Karia said, “The new rules have been introduced without any discussion.” Millions of users use this service because of its end-to-end encryption. So we are not prepared to break end-to-end encryption. We will close the business in India rather than do that.
Adv. Karia said the company would have to store billions of messages, and that too for years, without knowing which message would be asked to be decrypted. So it is impossible.
Take it on. Manmohan and Nya. By Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora Right to privacy is not absolute. It is said that they have to be balanced somewhere. The next hearing of this case will be held on August 14.