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Whatsapp's fight against interference with User-Privacy
Whatsapp is one of the biggest online messaging apps around the globe having 1.5 billion active users in around 180 countries. The app provides free of cost services to its users where they can chat, share media files, pictures, videos and indulge in voice or video calls.
In recent times the Facebook-owned app has been facing some troubles in India. The app is being forced to ensure that they have a tracking service via which the government can track the senders of any message. The fight has been going on for long. Both the government and Whatsapp have seemingly strong reasons to support their claims.
This feud can be traced back to the of an approximate of 45 people in the year 2018 as a result of circulation of false news against. The news circulated was anything but false labelling several as "child abductors". Ever since, the government has been trying to attack walls of privacy protecting identity of originators of messages.
The government makes a strong case stating that only when the original sender can be tracked - strict actions can be taken against the offenders. The government claims such interference is essential to esnure the maintenance of law and order, and serving of justice in the country. On the other hand, Whatsapp deems such an action to be a breach of the users’ privacy.
The matter was initiated in the Madras High Court when two animal welfare activists Antony Clement Rubin and Janani Krishnamurthy filed a petition stating that they want the court to ensure that every email and user account be linked to the user’s Aadhaar numbers in order to keep a check on social humiliation, cyber bullying and other intolerable activities on the social media.
Whatsapp appointed well-renowned lawyers Kapil Sibbal and Arvind Datar in order to represent them in the matter. Thye will be accompanied by the company’s top legal counsel Brian Hennesay who will be flying in from California. Whatsapp's major contention was that if the firewalls are brought down and the government is allowed to survey and record each and every message of users - it would amount to a serious breach of the user's privacy. Further, this would mean that any activist, religious institution, civil society will not be allowed to fully execute their right to freedom of speech and expression, in anticiption of a message being traced to its origin. Whatsapp objected at establishing free and private space for the individuals to communicate without any hinderance.
This fight is not limited to India but similar instances have been noticed in other countries as well. In the past week itself Whatsapp has been asked to reduce encryption levels in the US, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. The intelligence agencies of these countries have similar concerns regarding the non-traceability of the sender. They allege that the end-to-end encryption software is making the law enforcement more problematic than ever.
The Internet Freedom Foundation is an organization which has the power to join in any case without the permission of the original petitioners owing to their status of being an intervener. They released a statement which said that the result of this litigation may have some serious changes in the products of these social media websites since the court is asking them to come up with a plan to trace the originator of the message.
The matter has been set to be heard on the 21 August 2019 next.
