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Casey Newton – a Silicon Valley journalist associated with The Verge and the founder of Platformer News, has revealed that India plans to force Facebook to keep copies of WhatsApp messages, enabling its law enforcement authorities to read them with a new mechanism. The journalist made the revelation in a blog post on Platformer.
Did you know India is trying to force Facebook to keep a copy of all your WhatsApp messages so police can read them? I wrote about the new assault on online speech https://t.co/mrBvw46Bj2 pic.twitter.com/PaSKCl0XeR
— Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) March 9, 2021
According to the blog post, the new rules that India plans to implement will require Facebook to build technology that makes WhatsApp messages available to the Indian law enforcement within three months. According to the journalist, it’s unclear whether the same rules would also apply to Apple.
“I’m told the company is still investigating exactly what this will mean. Will the same rules apply to Apple’s iMessage, which also uses end-to-end encryption? Will there be ways to comply with the rules that don’t involve breaking encryption?” the journalist said.
The blog posts further add that complying with the Indian government’s request could create another substantial crisis for WhatsApp who is already reeling from the effects of millions abandoning its platform due to the new privacy policy. “Even the false notion that WhatsApp could break encryption as part of a commerce-focused update to its terms of service earlier this year sent tens of millions of people running to download Telegram and Signal. Imagine what would happen if it were true.”, the journalist added.
Read More: FACT CHECK: Will WhatsApp block your account if you don’t accept its new privacy policy?
