The company confirmed Wednesday that such a complaint has been filed with the Delhi High Court. CNN Business has asked for a copy of the lawsuit.
“Requiring messaging apps to ‘trace’ chats is the equivalent of asking us to keep a fingerprint of every single message sent on WhatsApp, which would break end-to-end encryption and fundamentally undermines people’s right to privacy,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to CNN Business. “We have consistently joined civil society and experts around the world in opposing requirements that would violate the privacy of our users. “
India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology called WhatsApp’s lawsuit an “unfortunate attempt” to prevent the new rules from coming into effect at the last minute.
“The government respects the right of privacy and has no Intention to violate it when WhatsApp is required to disclose the origin of a particular message,” it said in a statement.
The ministry said it would only ask the platform to reveal private data if required for the investigation or prevention of “very serious offenses” related to the sovereignty, security and integrity of India, public order, rape, child sex abuse or sexually explicit material.
The IT ministry said India was asking for “significantly much less” than other countries have demanded of the tech platform, and was committed to securing the right of privacy for all citizens as well as the means to maintain national security.
“It is WhatsApp’s responsibility to find a technical solution, whether through encryption or otherwise, that both happen,” it added.
Twitter did not respond to a request for comment on the new rules.
— Manveena Suri contributed to this report.
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