For last few days friends you must have heard/seen/read about the WhatsApp controversy regarding cyber snooping of few individuals. Now what is this controversy
It started with the allegation from Facebook owned WhatsApp accused Israel based NSO group of using the spyware called ‘Pegasus’ to target over 1400 WhatsApp users, few of them in India. As per the instant messaging firm, the spyware targeted victims by giving missed calls on their mobile phones.
With this development, and with the news WhatsApp snooping of human rights activists and journalists in India took the political turn last week, with Congress accusing Modi govt of snooping and demanded a Supreme Court monitored probe into the alleged hacking of cell phones. The congress spokeperson next day gave the statement that even Priyanka Gandhi was affected party in this case, as her phone was also hacked.
In a reply to an RTI application filed on 23rd Oct 2019 which asked whether the Indian govt has purchased or given purchase order for the software called Pegasus from NSO group, the Cyber & Information Security (CIS) division of Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said” It is informed that no such information is available with them”
The Govt on 31st Oct 2019 asked WhatsApp to explain the snooping scandal. Govt is concerned with the breach of privacy of Indian citizens on the messaging platform WhatsApp. The union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad further said “ The govt is committed to protecting the privacy of all Indian citizens. Reacting the the Congress’s attack on Modi govt, the minister brought back the former president Pranab Mukherjee’s office bugging incident when he was finance minister in the UPA regime in 2011, and also a gentle reminder of the spying over then Army Chief Gen VK Singh.
After the minister’s statement, WhatsApp spokeperson, in the first official reaction said “ We agree with the Govt of India’s strong statement about the need to safeguard the privacy of all Indian citizens. That is why we have taken this strong action to hold cyber attackers accountable and why WhatsApp is so committed to the protection of all user messages through the product we provide.”
This matter has now formally entered the Supreme Court (SC). A criminal petition has been filed in the SC against messaging firm WhatsApp along with its parent company Facebook Inc-with the Govt of India also being party to it. The petition is filed yesterday by KN Govindachraya, founder of Rashtriya Swabhimaam Andolan and former RSS member. While the petition seeks investigation by National Investigation agency (NIA) against WhatsApp and Facebook along with accusing the messaging application of misleading the various govts on its encryption security standards, it has also sought a prayer to the SC to direct the govt to stop any surveillance through Pegasus or other similar applications.
This is the first time the current controversy is entering Indian court, after WhatsApp sued Israel’s NSO group in US Court for placing spyware Pegasus on its users across the globe, including India. For WhatsApp India is the biggest market with 400 million monthly active users. Still the irony is “ India is one of the biggest markets, yet WhatsApp decided to file case in Us District court and did not disclose facts before India’s highest court. It is time the SC may fix civil and criminal liabilities of tech companies for playing with the privacy and rights of Indian citizens”
SC, yesterday, while hearing one another case expressed concern over violation of privacy rights of people and said “ every day something is happening” in the country infringing upon privacy rights of citizens. A bench was hearing plea of senior IPS officer of Chhattisgarh, regarding tapping of his and his daughters’ cell phones by the Chhattisgarh govt. Justices Arun Mishra and Indira Banerjee said “ No privacy left for anyone. What is happening in the country.”` The IPS officer who was DGP of State Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) and Economic Offence Wing (EOW) in previous BJP govt, was removed by the current Congress govt in Sept 2019.
With the availability of snooping software, it has become very easy for any govt or private agencies to infringe your privacy. So as the saying goes ‘every technology innovation has both pros and cons.’ So the pro in this case may be easy way of communication and con is your privacy can not be guaranteed.
Awaiting your comments/views/feed backs.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
5th Nov 2019.
KennethDof
You actually said it wonderfully!
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