Says committed to shield privacy, hits back at Opp’s snooping charge
Against the backdrop of revelations about WhatsApp’s privacy breach, the Centre on Thursday set a November 4 deadline for the Facebook-owned messaging giant to explain the breach and list out the measures that have been taken to safeguard privacy of millions of Indians. At the same time, the Centre rejected allegations of its involvement in the snooping and termed the charges as “attempts to malign the Government of India” and “completely misleading.”
Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday said, “The Government of India is concerned at the breach of privacy of citizens of India on the messaging platform WhatsApp. We have asked WhatsApp to explain the kind of breachand what it is doing to safeguard the privacy of millions of Indian citizens.”
Union Home Ministry officials said, “Some statements have appeared based on reports in media, regarding breach of privacy of Indian citizens on WhatsApp. These attempts to malign the Government of India for the reported breach are completely misleading.”
With Congress’ chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala accusing the Modi Government of using services of Israeli spyware Pegasus to snoop the WhatsApp communications of Indian journalists and human rights activists and urging the Supreme Court to hold the Centre accountable over the issue, Prasad retaliated by indirectly attacking the Congress’ first family.
“Those trying to make political capital out of it need to be gently reminded about the bugging incident in the office of the then eminent Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee during UPA regime. Also a gentle reminder of the spying over the then Army chief Gen VK Singh. These are instances of breach of privacy of highly reputed individuals, for personal whims and fancies of a family,” Prasad said.
In a statement he said that there are specified rules for sanction and supervision by high ranking officials for interception in both Central and State Governments in national interest.
WhatsApp had said it was suing NSO Group, an Israeli surveillance firm that is reportedly behind the technology that helped unnamed entities’ spies hack into phones of roughly 1,400 users spanning across four continents, including diplomats, political dissidents, journalists and senior Government officials.
However, it did not say on whose behest the phones of journalists and activists across the world were targeted.
Refusing to divulge identities or the exact number of those targeted in India, WhatsApp said it had in May stopped a highly sophisticated cyber attack that exploited its video calling system to send malware to its users.
But unconfirmed reports claimed that human rights lawyer Nihalsing Rathod, Chhattisgarh-based activist Shalini Gera and former BBC journalist Shubhranshu Choudhary were among those who had admitted to being targeted by the spyware on WhatsApp.
Denying allegations by WhatsApp, NSO had said it provides “technology to licenced Government intelligence and law enforcement agencies to help them fight terrorism and serious crime” and is not “designed or licensed for use against human rights activists and journalists”.
The controversy erupted after the WhatsApp informed a US court that it was suing NSO Group.