India / WhatsApp sues Indian govt, says new IT rules mean end to user privacy

New Delhi: WhatsApp has filed a complaint with the Delhi high court against the new guidelines of the government under which digital media companies will have to disclose the identity of the "first originator of information" when asked for it. The Facebook-owned messaging platform with nearly 400 million users in India cited the right to privacy and asked the Delhi High Court to declare that one of the new rules is a violation of privacy rights in India's constitution, according to Reuters.

Bloomberg reported that WhatsApp filed the lawsuit in the Delhi High Court on Tuesday evening, citing a spokesperson, and that the case is likely to be considered as early as Wednesday.

Here is what WhatsApp said:

1. According to Reuters, under the new rules WhatsApp will have to name only people credibly accused of wrongdoing but the company says it cannot do that alone in practice. WhatsApp says to comply with the law it would have break encryption for receivers, as well as "originators", of messages because they are end-to-end encrypted, Reuters added.

2. “Requiring messaging apps to ‘trace’ chats is the equivalent of asking us to keep a fingerprint of every single message sent on WhatsApp, which would break end-to-end encryption and fundamentally undermines people’s right to privacy,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

3. “We have consistently joined civil society and experts around the world in opposing requirements that would violate the privacy of our users. In the meantime, we will also continue to engage with the Government of India on practical solutions aimed at keeping people safe, including responding to valid legal requests for the information available to us,” it added.

4. Whatsapp will continue to engage with the government “on practical solutions aimed at keeping people safe, including responding to valid legal requests for information,” it added in the statement.

5. Reuters reported WhatsApp in its complaint cited a 2017 Supreme Court ruling supporting privacy in a case known as Puttaswamy. The top court found then that privacy must be preserved except in cases where legality, necessity and proportionality all weighed against it. WhatsApp argues, Reuters reported, that the law fails all three of those tests, starting with the lack of explicit parliamentary backing.