Traceability not essential for WhatsApp: Tamil Nadu Advocate General

In the latest development in the Madras High Court case on WhatsApp traceability, the state’s advocate general has told news portal Medianama that end-to-End encryption for WhatsApp is not essential and was a business decision.“End-to-end encryption was introduced to WhatsApp later. Therefore, it is not essential to the platform. It was a business decision. It is a question of business policy versus law”, E Manoharan, the Additional Government Pleader for the Tamil Nadu government was quoted to be saying.

The Madras High Court has been hearing the case for a while now, which falls amidst the central government’s efforts to gain traceability on WhatsApp. Last week it had also shot down a proposal linking Aadhaar with social media accounts to curb fake news and improve law enforcement.  

While these comments were made outside of court, it is enough to give a rude wake up call to privacy activists across the world to renew their efforts. Whatsapp’s end-to-end encryption secures users from any unauthorized, third-party access to their messages.