Instant messaging App – WhatsApp has filed a petition against the Indian Government in the Delhi High Court.
WhatsApp challenged Government’s new digital regulations, saying that the fresh norms would violate privacy of users.
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The new digital media rules laid down by the Government comes into effect from Wednesday.
The Facebook-owned messaging application said that the new rules will require it to ‘trace’ the origin of messages sent on the service, which it said is a violation of privacy.
“Requiring messaging apps to trace chats is the equivalent of asking us to keep a fingerprint of every single message sent on WhatsApp, which would break end-to-end encryption and fundamentally undermines people’s right to privacy,” WhatsApp said.
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WhatsApp has nearly 400 million users in India.
“We have consistently joined civil society and experts around the world in opposing requirements that would violate the privacy of our users. In the meantime, we will also continue to engage with the government of India on practical solutions aimed at keeping people safe, including responding to valid legal requests for the information available to us,” said a WhatsApp spokesperson.
The petition pleaded the Delhi High Court to declare that one of the new rules is a violation of privacy under the Constitution of India since it requires social media sites to identify the “first originator of information” when asked for it.
The lawsuit escalates a growing struggle between the Centre and tech giants including Facebook, Google and Twitter.