WhatsApp Files Case Against Modi Government’s IT Rules, Says It Weakens User Privacy; Congress Says New IT Rules Draconian

WhatsApp approached the Delhi High Court, challenging provisions in the new IT rules that would require messaging services to trace the origin of particular messages. The Facebook-owned messaging platform with nearly 400 million users in India cited the right to privacy and asked the Delhi High Court to declare that one of the new rules is a violation of privacy rights in India's constitution, according to Reuters. The Congress hit out at the government, saying the new intermediary rules were “dire, drastic and draconian in nature”. The Congress party argued the guidelines show the government is suffering from big daddy syndrome, reported The Indian Express. Congress too pointed out that the problematic clause in the guidelines is the direction to social media intermediaries to make provisions for “identification of the first originator of the information”. The government, however, has maintained that platforms will be liable to disclose the originator of the message. The government said this is “only for the purposes of prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution or punishment of an offense related to sovereignty and integrity of India”.