“Govt Respects Right to Privacy but National Security is Above All:” Govt to Social Media

NEW DELHI, May 26: The centre has taken a serious view of the social media giant WhatsApp’s last minute challenge to the Indian government’s new intermediary guidelines as an unfortunate attempt to prevent norms from coming into effect.

Calling WhatsApp’s refusal to comply with the new IT rules as a “clear act of defiance,” the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has said while it respected the right to privacy, it is not an unlimited right and will come with reasonable restrictions. The government was responding to WhatsApp’s to lawsuit against the new IT rules which came into was due to come into force from Midnight on Thursday. WhatsApp filed the petition in the Delhi High Court on May 25, the last date for compliance with the new rules.

“The Government of India is committed to ensure the Right of Privacy to all its citizens but at the same time it is also the responsibility of the government to maintain law and order and ensure national security,” Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, adding that “none of the measures proposed by India will impact the normal functioning of WhatsApp in any manner whatsoever and for the common users, there will be no impact.”

Calling the debate of end-to-end encryption as misplaced, Prasad said, “Whether Right to Privacy is ensured through using encryption technology or some other technology is entirely the purview of the social media intermediary. It is WhatsApp’s responsibility to find a technical solution, whether through encryption or otherwise, that both happen.” WhatsApp’s main argument is that traceability would require it to track every single message and thus break its end-to-end encryption protocol.

The government of India in a press release said it recognises that ‘Right to Privacy’ is a Fundamental right and is committed to ensure the same to its citizens. However, it added that “as per all established judicial dictum, no Fundamental Right, including the Right to Privacy, is absolute and is subject to reasonable restrictions.”

The press release also questions the Facebook-owned platform’s commitment to user privacy: “At one end, WhatsApp seeks to mandate a privacy policy wherein it will share the data of all its user with its parent company, Facebook, for marketing and advertising purposes. On the other hand, WhatsApp makes every effort to refuse the enactment of the Intermediary Guidelines which are necessary to uphold law and order and curb the menace of fake news.”

The government response also states that WhatsApp is only required to trace the originator of a message only in case when the message is required for prevention, investigation or punishment of very serious offences related to the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order, or of incitement to an offence relating to the above or in relation with rape, sexually explicit material or child sexual abuse material.

Pointing out that the countries like the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada required social media firms to allow for legal interception, the centre said “What India is asking for is significantly much less than what some of the other countries have demanded.” “Therefore, WhatsApp’s attempt to portray the Intermediary Guidelines of India as contrary to the right to privacy is misguided,” the official statement said.

Emphasising that the right to privacy is a fundamental right, the ministry further gave pointers on how the new rules are in “abiding public interest,” are as per “law of the land,” and “have an international precedence.”

On February 25, Prasad and information and broadcasting (I&B) minister Prakash Javadekar announced the new IT rules, giving social media giants like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram three months, i.e. till May 25, to comply with the government directives. The deadline elapsed on Tuesday. While Twitter is yet to comment on the issue, Facebook has said it is “working on the new rules.” However, it added that “a few of the issues need more engagement with the government.”

WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, moved the Delhi high court on Tuesday, stating in its plea that the rules are “unconstitutional,” “illegal” and a “dangerous invasion of privacy.”

(Manas Dasgupta)