{"id":2512,"date":"2019-06-22T02:33:22","date_gmt":"2019-06-22T02:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/?p=2512"},"modified":"2019-06-22T02:33:24","modified_gmt":"2019-06-22T02:33:24","slug":"govt-demands-fingerprinting-of-messages-from-whatsapp-to-trace-origin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/govt-demands-fingerprinting-of-messages-from-whatsapp-to-trace-origin\/","title":{"rendered":"Govt. demands fingerprinting of messages from WhatsApp to trace origin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The<strong>&nbsp;Indian government has demanded<\/strong>&nbsp;<strong>Whatsapp<\/strong>, the Facebook-owned messaging application,\nto&nbsp;<strong>digitally fingerprint messages&nbsp;<\/strong>that are sent on its platform<strong>&nbsp;without breaking the\nencryption.&nbsp;<\/strong><br>\n<br>\n<strong>Aim:<\/strong><br>\nThe move is to ensure traceability of all\ncontent shared through the WhatsApp platform, without reading the message. The\ndecision is in line with draft amendments to intermediary guidelines of the<strong>Information Technology Act\nreleased in December 2018<\/strong>, which requires all internet platforms to ensure traceability of the\norigin of all content shared through them.<br>\nThis step may proivde&nbsp;<strong>harm free speech o<\/strong>n the internet and can increase government\ncontrol on private data. This will require the government to introduce\naccountable measures at its end, to ensure data protection.<br>\n<br>\n<strong>New\nArchitecture:<\/strong><br>\nA digital fingerprint on messages means that\nWhatsApp has&nbsp;<strong>to create a database of messages<\/strong>&nbsp;shared on its platform and store them\nwith a unique fingerprint. This will also call for WhatsApp to&nbsp;<strong>redesign its whole\narchitecture<\/strong>. WhatsApp has\nmaintained its stand of not being able to offer traceability on the existing\nend-to-end encryption architecture.<br>\n<br>\n<strong>Why the\nmove:<\/strong><br>\nThe government demands thus, after the\nmisinformation and rumours around&nbsp;<strong>child kidnappings on the\nplatform<\/strong>&nbsp;which\nled to a<strong>&nbsp;spate of lynchings<\/strong>&nbsp;across India in 2018. This made the government to demand strictly\nWhatsApp to introduce ways in which the origination of message can be traced in\nan effective manner.<br>\n<br>\n<strong>Majority\nIndian users using WhatsApp:<\/strong><br>\n<strong>AudienceNet,<\/strong>&nbsp;an UK-based social and consumer research\nagency, reported that the majority of the respondents in India selected\nWhatsApp as the preferred choice of social media network and a messaging\nplatform.&nbsp;<br>\nIt also highlighted that about&nbsp;<strong>78% of the respondents trust<\/strong>&nbsp;WhatsApp to keep their personal details\nprivate and secure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The&nbsp;Indian government has demanded&nbsp;Whatsapp, the Facebook-owned messaging application, to&nbsp;digitally fingerprint messages&nbsp;that are sent on its platform&nbsp;without breaking the encryption.&nbsp; Aim: The move is to ensure traceability of all content shared through the WhatsApp platform, without reading the message. The decision is in line with draft amendments to intermediary guidelines of theInformation Technology Act released in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-2512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2514,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2512\/revisions\/2514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2512"},{"taxonomy":"offerexpiration","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/offerexpiration?post=2512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}