New Delhi: In the courtroom, WhatsApp’s representative, Tejas Karia, made it clear that privacy and encryption are vital for WhatsApp users. He said that if WhatsApp is made to break its encryption, it would have no choice but to stop its services across India. This statement was in response to the challenge against a rule that says social media platforms must reveal who first shared certain information if a court orders it. Karia, from the side of WhatsApp argued that this rule is not good for users’ privacy and was made without enough talking with the people involved.
He also pointed out that this rule would force WhatsApp to keep a lot of messages for a long time, which isn’t done anywhere else in the world. Karia also mentioned that the Information Technology Act doesn’t say anything about breaking encryption. When asked if other countries have similar rules, Karia said no, not even in places like South America.
The government said these rules are needed to find fake messages and keep peace. WhatsApp had said before that following this rule would be like keeping fingerprints of every message, which would break encryption and hurt people’s privacy.
