WhatsApp sues govt

WhatsApp has filed a lawsuit in Delhi against the Indian government seeking to block regulations coming into force yesterday that experts say would compel Facebook's messaging app to break privacy protections, sources said. 

The case asks the Delhi High Court to declare that one of the new IT rules is a violation of privacy rights in India's constitution since it requires social media companies to identify the "first originator of information" when authorities demand it, people familiar with the lawsuit told Reuters.

The WhatsApp lawsuit escalates a growing struggle between Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government and tech giants including Facebook, Google's parent Alphabet and Twitter in one of their key global growth markets.

Tensions rose after police visited Twitter's offices this week. The micro-blogging service had labelled posts by a spokesman for India's dominant party and others as containing "manipulated media", saying forged content was included.

New Delhi has also pressed tech companies to remove what it has described as misinformation on the Covid-19 pandemic ravaging India, and some criticism of the government's response to the crisis, which is claiming thousands of lives daily.

While the new law only requires WhatsApp, which has half a billion users in India, to unmask people credibly accused of wrongdoing, it says it cannot in practice do that alone.

WhatsApp says that because messages are encrypted end-to-end it would have to break encryption for receivers of messages as well as the originators to comply with the new law.

A government official said WhatsApp could find a way to track originators of disinformation, a long-standing stance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration, and that the US company was not being asked to break encryption.

Among the new rules are requirements that big social media firms appoint Indian citizens to key compliance roles, remove content within 36 hours of a legal order, and set up a mechanism to respond to complaints. They must also use automated processes to take down pornography.

Facebook has said it agrees with most of the provisions but is still looking to negotiate some aspects.