The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a public interest litigation petition seeking a complete ban on messaging platform WhatsApp.
A Bench led by Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur asked RTI activist from Gurgaon, Sudhir Yadav, to move the government instead with his plea that complete >encryption enabled for messages sent by users would stonewall police investigations, especially in terror cases.
WhatsApp had introduced end-to-end encryption with their updated version from April 2016. WhatsApp itself did not have the decryption keys to crack the code and would be unable to help the government in national interest, Mr. Yadav pleaded.
The Bench advised Mr. Yadav to approach the competent authority in the government, like the Department of Telecom, Information Technology ministry or TDSAT.