Facebook Inc. (FB) owned online messaging platform WhatsApp has sued the government of India over new privacy measures set to be implemented by the state in the course of the week.
According to the lawsuit filed in a high court in New Delhi, WhatsApp is accusing the government of India of trying to break privacy protections by introducing the new measures in the country which serves as WhatsApp’s largest customer base.
According to the lawsuit, WhatsApp is asking the court to rule that one of the IT rules is in direct violation of India’s constitution since it requires social media companies to identify the first originator of information when the government request for it.
WhatsApp says its platform is equipped with end-to-end encryption which means to identify the first source of a message the company will have to break this high end privacy feature so as to comply with the government.
“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,” said WhatsApp.
