Ever since devices and apps that offered full encryption became popular with consumers, governments around the world have tried to enforce laws forcing companies to break down encryption or building backdoors into their products. That way, law enforcement agencies would be able to collect data, including encrypted phone content and chat apps that may be relevant for investigations. These initiatives have not been successful, and devices and apps that offer end-to-end encryption provide strong protection for users.
The Indian government has proposed a different tracking method that will not involve breaking end-to-end encrypted texts. Officials are urging Facebook to tag each individual WhatsApp message so that it can be traced back to the sender in case of a crime.
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Senior officials have contacted Economic Times that the government is asking WhatsApp to assign an alphanumeric hash to every message sent through the platform. The hash would travel with the message, giving it a unique identifier without breaking the strong encryption.
“The government is willing to work with WhatsApp to find a solution that will allow beginners to find a message without breaking encryption,” anonymous officials have said.
The government wants to be able to find the first person who sent a message that could be identified by a court of law or an authorized government agency. It is not clear what kind of messages would be marked and how the identification would happen if WhatsApp chats are encrypted. Also, it is not clear how finding the original navigator could help authorities, although there are situations where that may be helpful. This phrase reflects the type of crime that officers may be targeting with the move:
‘You can’t run such a great platform and not build accountability into it. Even if the dignity of one woman is compromised, they must help break the perpetrators of the crime, ‘the sources added.
Facebook has objected to the request citing its own privacy rules. The company also said that their technology does not want to track all messages sent on WhatsApp. India is Facebook’s largest WhatsApp marketplace, with 400 million active users. Billions of messages are being sent every minute, and each one had to find a specific find.
Government official to whom he spoke ET they said the talks with WhatsApp are ongoing, and that the company has not formally announced its position. WhatsApp has three months to comply with the February notification.
Indian government officials maintain that Facebook could find messages without breaking encryption while revealing that the government is not even looking to impose a rule in place. The country’s IT Act contains a clause requiring companies to decrypt messages as mandated by the government. Facebook could not break the WhatsApp encryption even though ordered.
The report notes that WhatsApp chief Will Cathcart said earlier this month on a podcast that the company hopes to find a solution that would address concerns about the discovery of India without end-to-end encryption.
Facebook has promised over the years not to remove strong WhatsApp encryption. The company also said that their unified messaging system would one day come with Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and that it would all be protected by encryption.
Recently, Facebook had to face a major WhatsApp controversy, when millions of people rushed to download Signal and Telegram in response to Facebook ‘s planned privacy policy changes. Facebook has been in cleanup mode for a few months now, telling WhatsApp users of every change it received that the privacy policy change would not remove end-to-end encryption of calls and texts.
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Chris Smith began writing about gadgets as a hobby, and before he knew it he was sharing his thoughts on tech stuff with readers around the world. When he’s not writing about tools he finds it hard to stay away from them, even though he’s trying hard. But that is not necessarily a bad thing.