WhatsApp sues Centre, says new media rules mean end to privacy: Report

These giants dont need our support, they can spend millions (even billions) on lobbying and law suits

whatapp(fb) is taling abt privacy

I support the clause as it prevents (at least helps punish) shocking scaring mob lynchings
Monitoring should be done only on court order

There is one evil entity heavily invested in fake news & hate speech for its survival
This law means.. digging its own grave (when you make a social media platform to do/follow something forcefully)

What’s next? Changing the constitution?

Ye India ko Norh Korea banake hi manega. India ki Per capita income Bangladesh se kam ho gyi h. Jaldi hi hamare Vinash Purush desh m Africa jesi Bhukmari le aayega. But thus Govt dont want people to know about its failure. So they just want to suppress Social media in name of Privacy.

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/exclusive-w...

WhatsApp has filed a legal complaint in Delhi against the Indian government seeking to block regulations coming into force on Wednesday that experts say would compel the California-based Facebook (FB.O) unit to break privacy protections, sources said.

The lawsuit, described to Reuters by people familiar with it, asks the Delhi High Court to declare that one of the new rules is a violation of privacy rights in India’s constitution since it requires social media companies to identify the “first originator of information” when authorities demand it.

While the law requires WhatsApp to unmask only people credibly accused of wrongdoing, the company says it cannot do that alone in practice. Because messages are end-to-end encrypted, to comply with the law WhatsApp says it would have break encryption for receivers, as well as “originators”, of messages.

Reuters could not independently confirm the complaint had been filed in court by WhatsApp, which has nearly 400 million users in India, nor when it might be reviewed by the court. The people with knowledge of the matter declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

A WhatsApp spokesman declined to comment.

The lawsuit escalates a growing struggle between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and tech giants including Facebook, Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL.O) and Twitter (TWTR.N) in one of their key global growth markets.

Tensions grew after a police visit to Twitter’s offices earlier this week. The micro-blogging service had labelled posts by a spokesman for the dominant party and others as containing “manipulated media”, saying forged content was included.

The government has also pressed the tech companies to remove not only what it has described as misinformation on the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging India, but also some criticism of the government’s response to the crisis, which is claiming thousands of lives daily.

The response of the companies to the new rules has been a subject of intense speculation since they were unveiled in February, 90 days before they were slated to go into effect.

The Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code, promulgated by the ministry of information technology, designates “significant social media intermediaries” as standing to lose protection from lawsuits and criminal prosecution if they fail to adhere to the code.

WhatsApp, its parent Facebook and tech rivals have all invested heavily in India. But company officials worry privately that increasingly heavy-handed regulation by the Modi government could jeopardize those prospects.

Among the new rules are requirements that big social media firms appoint Indian citizens to key compliance roles, remove content within 36 hours of a legal order, and set up a mechanism to respond to complaints. They must also use automated processes to take down pornography.

Facebook has said that it agrees with most of the provisions but is still looking to negotiate some aspects. Twitter, which has come under the most fire for failing to take down posts by government critics, declined to comment.

Some in the industry are hoping for a delay in the introduction of the new rules while such objections are heard.

The WhatsApp complaint cites a 2017 Indian Supreme Court ruling supporting privacy in a case known as Puttaswamy, the people familiar with it said.

The court found then that privacy must be preserved except in cases where legality, necessity and proportionality all weighed against it. WhatsApp argues that the law fails all three of those tests, starting with the lack of explicit parliamentary backing.

Experts have backed WhatsApp’s arguments.

“The new traceability and filtering requirements may put an end to end-to-end encryption in India,” Stanford Internet Observatory scholar Riana Pfefferkorn wrote in March.

Other court challenges to the new rules are already pending in Delhi and elsewhere.

In one, journalists argue that the extension of technology regulations to digital publishers, including the imposition of decency and taste standards, is unsupported by the underlying law.

Haven’t read exactly what kind of details and in what conditions new law want’s to share about users. Are they asking for access to messaging content also? Can anyone confirm who have read it properly.
Also I was reading the privacy policy of whatsapp for European Region and Non EU region. A major chunk is missing for non-Eu region. Here is a part of Eu part which is missing:
“as necessary to comply with legal obligations such as when we are required to respond to a legal request from law enforcement. Learn more here;
when and as necessary, to protect your vital interests, or those of others such as in the event of an emergency where there is a threat to your life or someone else’s. Learn more here;as necessary for our (or others’) legitimate interests, including our interests in providing an innovative, relevant, safe, and profitable service to our users and partners, unless those interests are overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms that require protection of personal data; for example, to prevent our Services being used for harmful or illegal activity. Learn more here;
where it is necessary in the public interest.
Compliance With A Legal Obligation
Why And How We Process Your Data:
For processing data when we comply with a legal obligation including, for example, if there is a valid legal request for certain data such as an order from law enforcement to provide data in relation to an investigation, such as your name, profile picture or IP address. We will disclose data pursuant to the legal obligation.
Data Categories Used: The information we use for this processing varies depending on the circumstances but it generally is comprised of information described in the “Information You Provide” and “Automatically Collected Information” sections of this Privacy Policy.
Protection Of Your Vital Interests Or Those Of Another Person
Why And How We Process Your Data:
For processing data for protecting your vital interests or those of another person. The vital interests we rely on for this processing include protection of your life, physical integrity, or safety, or that of others, and we rely on it to combat harmful conduct and to promote safety, security and integrity, including, for example, when we are investigating reports of harmful conduct or when someone needs help. This could include the promotion of safety, security, and integrity by providing law enforcement with data in the event of an emergency where it is requested and is necessary to protect a person’s life or safety, for example where there is a risk of imminent harmful conduct such as an attack or where a person’s safety is at risk."

Center to whatsapp

Look who’s talking about privacy.. whatever suits them is what they will agree. They will sell the entire chat history to Facebook and earn millions of ad revenue, but they won’t trace the origin of texts that cause hatred and spread false news in the society. What a blasphemy!

@getready Thanks for the links bro. Read through the law mainly the newly added intermediary part.
This part seems to be the one causing chaos
“where upon receiving actual knowledge under clause (d), on a voluntary basis on violation
of clause (b), or on the basis of grievances received under sub-rule (2), any information has
been removed or access to which has been disabled, the intermediary shall, without
vitiating the evidence in any manner, preserve such information and associated records for
one hundred and eighty days for investigation purposes, or for such longer period as may
be required by the court or by Government agencies who are lawfully authorised;”
As I have understood direct data is not asked to store but the things which are required to be provided definitely force to do store it lol.
But most of our data is already stored except chats in case of end2end encryption apps like Whats’app and signal. Even the whats app’s parent company Facebook stores data including our chats also.
Also there is a separate section for apps dealing in messaging services which sates this:

“A significant social media intermediary providing services primarily in the nature of
messaging shall enable the identification of the first originator of the information on its computer resource
as may be required by a judicial order passed by a court of competent jurisdiction or an order passed under
section 69 by the Competent Authority as per the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for
interception, monitoring and decryption of information) Rules, 2009”
“Provided also that in complying with an order for identification of the first originator, no
significant social media intermediary shall be required to disclose the contents of any electronic message,
any other information related to the first originator, or any information related to its other users:”
Although many are concerned might be asked access to content in future. No idea how its gonna effect the efficiency of the encryption.
Let’s see how the lawsuit turns there are lot’s of if’s and but’s but its not good to hear privacy like word from company like what’s app aka Facebook if it was someone else then would have been fine.

End-to-end encryption brings it’s own set of issues and biggest one is chat backup. Which opens its own set of vulnerability.
Apps like WhatsApp rely on Apple iCloud and Google Drive to store message history and prevent data loss in case their users lose or change their smartphones or uninstalls the app.
The data saved in such cases is saved is not of course e-e encrypted sometimes its not encrypted at all. Which makes it vulnerable to hackers and governments that can get access to it via the cloud storage even if the what’s app or other app doesn’t allow to and those company do or if storage gets compromised although what’s app do mention that. The problem doesn’t solves even if one doesn’t backs up its own chat as there’s good chance the receiver might have turned back-up on.
Apps like signal doesn’t back-up data at all which is definitely not at ease for its users people even now face this with what’s app already if data backup frequency is not set properly or if somehow its not backed-up.
There are some other issues too like with recently popularity gaining feature WhatsApp for web.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/10/where-wha...
CC : @shivkumara27663 @getready