No ban on Whatsapp: Supreme Court

Plea stated that complete encryption enabled messages sent by users would stonewall police investigations.

June 29, 2016 12:24 pm | Updated October 18, 2016 12:57 pm IST - New Delhi

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.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.