People use WhatsApp for privacy, company tells Delhi HC: ‘That goes, we exit India’

WhatsApp told told the Delhi High Court that the messaging platform will shut down in India if it is forced to break message encryption which protects user privacy by ensuring that only the sender and recipient can read and access message content. Meta-owned company’s lawyer told the court, “As a platform, we are saying, if we are told to break encryption, then WhatsApp goes.”

WhatsApp and Facebook parent company Meta are challenging the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 as per which companies are required to trace chats and identify message originators.

What WhatsApp said in court?

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People use WhatsApp- which has more than 400 million users in India- largely because of the privacy features that it offers, the lawyer added. Any rules undermining encryption of content as well as the privacy of the users violate fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution of India, WhatsApp argued.

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The company’s lawyer said, “There is no such rule anywhere else in the world. Not even in Brazil. We will have to keep a complete chain and we don’t know which messages will be asked to be decrypted. It means millions and millions of messages will have to be stored for a number of years.”

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a virtual address at Meta’s annual event last year, “India (is) a country that’s at the forefront… You’re leading the world in terms of how people and businesses have embraced messaging.”
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