In a significant development, WhatsApp, owned by Meta, conveyed to the Delhi High Court its stance that it would cease operations if compelled to dismantle message encryption in India. The platform’s legal representatives asserted that if instructed to compromise encryption, WhatsApp would be rendered inoperable.
WhatsApp emphasized that users opt for the platform due to its end-to-end encryption, which ensures privacy. The Meta-owned app cautioned that undermining encryption would erode trust. The court addressed petitions filed by WhatsApp and its parent company Meta, contesting Rule 4(2) of the Information Technology Rules, 2021.
According to Rule 4(2), a significant social media intermediary must facilitate the identification of the initial source of information on its computer resource upon a court or competent authority’s directive. Advocate Tejas Karia, representing WhatsApp, elucidated to the Delhi High Court that this rule would necessitate WhatsApp to retain vast quantities of messages for extensive periods, a requirement not present elsewhere globally.
Karia highlighted, “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.” Additionally, the advocate underscored that the challenged rule extends beyond the parent Information Technology Act, which does not mandate encryption dismantlement.