WhatsApp has sued the Indian government in a bid to block new rules it says would lead to “mass surveillance” by forcing social media platforms to hand over private information about their users.

It comes after the UK Covid Inquiry revealed officials had deleted messages shared during the pandemic.

Even though WhatsApp has strong privacy and security features, it isn’t impenetrable – as Israel has previously shown.

Key Quote. WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption runs up against some government efforts to find out who sent a message, a concept known as “traceability.” ...

Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp is suing India’s government over new internet rules it claims are unconstitutional and will “severely undermine the privacy” of its users, The New ...

Meta’s messaging platform joins growing list of restricted applications as officials cite data transparency issues ...

The Taliban administration is stuck in a cat-and-mouse game with WhatsApp, which is off-limits to the nascent government because of U.S. sanctions.

WhatsApp has sued the Indian government challenging new regulations that could allow authorities to make people’s private messages “traceable,” and conduct mass surveillance.

Should UK government officials be allowed to send each other “disappearing messages” on WhatsApp?A High Court judge has ruled that two campaign groups can pursue their case to end the practice.

A government agency can then unmask specific WhatsApp users by tracing their IP address, a unique number assigned to every connected device, to their internet or cellular service provider account.

After that, the government sent a notice to WhatsApp, and MeitY Secretary S. Krishnan confirmed that discussions with Meta, WhatsApp's parent company, are ongoing to tackle this persistent issue.

Basically, the UK government will be able to snoop in real-time on 10,000 people in the UK, whenever it wants to. The Home Secretary is responsible for asking the company to break encryption.