New Intermediary Rules in India --- This is one of the key concerns under the new intermediary liability rules that have been released by the government of India last year - a provision in the rules requires intermediaries like WhatsApp and Signal to help the state identify the "first originator" of any message that could cause problems to national security, public order etc. The provision does not ask for encryption to be broken, but puts the responsibility of identifying the first originator on the intermediaries. As WhatsApp is litigating in Indian courts right now, it is impossible for companies like them to identify this first originator without completely breaking end-to-end encryption. Since the matter is still in court, it will be interesting to see how it pans out and if services like WhatsApp will be allowed to operate in the country.

Source author: Pavitra Ramanujam pavitra.ramanujam@gmail.com