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Instant messaging platform WhatsApp has moved the Delhi High Court on the grounds that the new IT rules would cause the platform to ‘break privacy protections.’
WhatsApp is worried that the social media intermediary IT rules will go against its 'end-to-end encryption' stance that pledges to never read or store messages on their servers, resulting in a stalemate between the company and government.
Indian government had proposed to assign alphanumeric hashes to WhatsApp messages so that originator of every message can be traced back.
However, WhatsApp has asked the HC to declare one of the new IT rules as a violation of privacy rights as per India's Constitution, since it requires social media companies to “identify the first originator of information” whenever authorities demand it.
Hashing is a process of solving a problem efficiently by listing them in order. It is a process where a piece of data is masked with a fixed value so that it can be easily traced when needed.
This methodology is used for several purposes including password verification, breaking compression, and data structures as well.
Indian government has suggested assigning ‘alphanumeric hashes’ to every message sent using WhatsApp.
According to a report by The Economic Times, the government wants WhatsApp to maintain a catalogue of each and every message sent on its platform.
All these hash keys will be maintained by WhatsApp, and when a law enforcement agency wants to investigate a problematic message all it has to do is to request WhatsApp for the hash of the original sender.
Sharing his thoughts on hashing, cyber security expert Rajshekhar Rajaharia told The Quint,“It will add a unique ID to each message. In simple words it will serialise each message and with the serial number the government may identify the original sender and well as all the forwarders. There might be a chain system which may create a route of forwarded messages”.
he added.
WhatsApp, in a statement to The Quint, said that “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.”
A WhatsApp spokesperson explained why the platform is opposing traceability of messages:
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