RTI activist Sudhir Yadav has filed a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court seeking a ban on Whatsapp and other messenger services having end to end encryption..As per this report on trak.in, Sudhir had first sought information on Whatsapp’s encryption rules under RTI Laws, but when he was not successful in the same, he decided to approach the Supreme Court..In an interview given to Medianama, Sudhir says that he is not against encryption but he wants the private key to be provided to the government so that the government can decrypt a message if it wants..Sudhir says,.“….. make encryption even more secure than this (256 bit). It’s just that if the government demands that they want to decrypt a message, they should have a key. Whatsapp is owned by Facebook, and Facebook has another messaging app called Facebook Messenger. That has 256 bit encryption as well. However, they have the private key, so that they have the ability to provide information to the government if it is demanded. But they can’t do that with Whatsapp because they don’t have the private key….. we’re in a troubled neighbourhood with Pakistan, ISIS, and there are also Naxals (internally). We need keys so that we can protect the unity and integrity of India.”.Whatsapp had introduced end to end encryption last month.
RTI activist Sudhir Yadav has filed a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court seeking a ban on Whatsapp and other messenger services having end to end encryption..As per this report on trak.in, Sudhir had first sought information on Whatsapp’s encryption rules under RTI Laws, but when he was not successful in the same, he decided to approach the Supreme Court..In an interview given to Medianama, Sudhir says that he is not against encryption but he wants the private key to be provided to the government so that the government can decrypt a message if it wants..Sudhir says,.“….. make encryption even more secure than this (256 bit). It’s just that if the government demands that they want to decrypt a message, they should have a key. Whatsapp is owned by Facebook, and Facebook has another messaging app called Facebook Messenger. That has 256 bit encryption as well. However, they have the private key, so that they have the ability to provide information to the government if it is demanded. But they can’t do that with Whatsapp because they don’t have the private key….. we’re in a troubled neighbourhood with Pakistan, ISIS, and there are also Naxals (internally). We need keys so that we can protect the unity and integrity of India.”.Whatsapp had introduced end to end encryption last month.
