Then WhatsApp Goes! Messaging platform tells HC it will exit India if forced to break encryption

WhatsApp and its parent company Facebook Inc, now Meta, challenged the 2021 Information Technology (IT) rules for social media intermediaries in Delhi High Court.

A lawyer appearing for WhatsApp told the Delhi High Court that the Meta-owned messaging platform will have to “exit India” if it is made to break encryption of messages. The advocate told the court that people use the platform due to the privacy it assures and also because messages are end-to-end encrypted.

The remarks were made as the High Court was on Thursday hearing petitions by WhatsApp and its parent company Facebook Inc, now Meta, challenging the 2021 Information Technology (IT) rules for social media intermediaries requiring the messaging app to trace chats and make provisions to identify the first originator of information.

The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 were announced by the Centre on February 25, 2021. It requires large social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp to comply with the latest norms.

Appearing for the messaging platform, lawyer Tejas Karia told a bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora, “As a platform, we are saying, if we are told to break encryption, then WhatsApp goes,” Bar and Bench reported.

“We will have to keep a complete chain, and we don’t know which messages will be asked to be decrypted. It means millions and millions of messages will have to be stored for a number of years,” he said.

The bench, while observing that the matter would have to be argued by the parties, asked if a similar law exists in any other country.

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“There is no such rule anywhere else in the world. Not even in Brazil,” the lawyer replied.

The court further said that privacy rights were not absolute and “somewhere balance has to be done”.

Meanwhile, the lawyer appearing for the Centre said the rule was significant when objectionable content is spread on platforms in cases such as those of communal violence.

The bench ordered that the matter be listed for hearing on August 14 to await the transfer of all other petitions challenging several aspects of the 2021 IT Rules to it pursuant to a Supreme Court order.

On March 22, the Supreme Court transferred to the Delhi High Court a batch of pleas pending before different high courts across the country challenging the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

Several petitions were pending on the issue before different high courts, including Karnataka, Madras, Calcutta, Kerala and Bombay.