March 29, 2024
Whatsapp encryption may lead to ban Its service in India

A service which does not comes under any Laws in India.

Whatsapp last night tuned on encryption within the app,which means by default if an user using the latest version of whatsapp, all the communication through the app will be encrypted. This somewhat makes  Whatsapp illegal in India, but how? Lets take a peep on the reason.

Our country’s IT laws are outdated and because of that a case  can be made against whatsapp because of using 256-bit encryption by default .

This is an ill-defined situation and given the fact of the popularity of whatsapp among the peoples in in india, goverment may not go after it, but in  true laws of India one may say that this chat app is illegal. None of the IT related regulations permit 256-bit encryption in private firms neither they outcast it. But according to Some guidelines issued by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) government can say this chat app to be illegal in India.

According to rules issued by DoT in 2007, License Agreement for provision of Internet service including internet telephony commission that private parties in India cannot use encryption that is higher than 40-bits without the permission of government.

Whatsapp encryption method may lead to its ban from the service in India

Permission is granted if  the entity that wants to use encryption provides decryption keys to the government,which is not possible for whatsapp to follow as it has implemented without having the decryption keys.

Now the most interesting part comes here is , whatsapp is not an ISP nor it requires any DoT license to offer its service in India. so its also mean that before accusing a private company for breaking the laws , the government itself is confused whether the rules made by DoT actually apply or not. Now YOUTH OF THIS COUNTRY HAS A QUESTION, WHY THE LAWS OF THIS COUNTRY IS NOT PROPERLY DOCUMENTED? . Although if government of India wants then it can clearly stop the service of this app in India.

India on other hand is in the process of formulating some sort of consistent encryption policy. in the year of 2015, government proposed a draft for the use of encryption India and it was pulled back because of criticism that it was a bad draft. one of the suggestion in the draft was that the firms or company using encrypted services will be asked to keep the decrypted  data for at least 3 months or 90 days. Now if something like that makes it a ways with any of the government new policy, it will definitely make Whatsapp illegal.

Now the question comes why this country did not have a proper Law, Why Big  MNC companies  are getting more advantage and why indian IT firms are lacking behind?

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