The government has reiterated its stand in favour of traceability, making it clear that social media platforms like WhatsApp must "reengineer their platforms" if need be to help law enforcement agencies trace the origin of messages that are creating any law and order issue, official sources told ET.
Facebook-owned WhatsApp has taken the government to court challenging the traceability mandate in the new Intermediary Guidelines. But, in recent meeting with social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter, the Ministry of Electronics and IT has stood its ground arguing that “traceability has nothing to do with breaking end-to-end encryption”, is very “much possible” and is an “absolute necessity” for national security and law and order in the country.
The reiteration comes after the ministry had a change of guard with Ashwini Vaishnaw taking over as the union minister for electronics and IT, along with Rajeev Chandrasekhar as the junior minister. Chandrasekhar, a technocrat-turned-politician, had a series of meetings with top technology and Internet firms in the last few weeks. Those he met recently included Facebook India managing director Ajit Mohan and its public policy director, Shivnath Thukral. He also held a virtual interaction with the global and India public policy team at Twitter which included its global policy chief, Vijaya Gadde.
“Our mandate is user safety and a safe and trusted Internet. If that is the objective, how can traceability not be part of our...
Read Full Story: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/reengineer-platforms-to-ensure-traceability-govt-to-social-media/articleshow/85995671.cms
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