Deleting Whats App Chat Soon To Be Illegal : New Delhi
This may become true soon . According to he proposed National Encryption Policy , deleting your chats prior to 3 months might be considered Illegal .
According to this policy , you may soon need to keep a copy all messages/chats sent through any encrypted messaging services such as WhatsApp (Android version supports encryption), Google Hangouts or Apple’s iMessage, for 90 days, as per the proposed National Encryption Policy . The policy is yet to be implemented in its current form.
[box ENGINE=”shadow” align=”aligncenter” class=”” width=””] As per the latest National Encryption Policy , the Online businesses too would need to keep your sensitive information including passwords in plain text for the same period of time, thus exposing your information to potential hacking attacks. [/box]
The government has published a draft of the policy document online to seek feedback from citizens and organisations. The National Encryption Policy details methods of encryption of data and communication standards used by the government, businesses and citizens.
National Encryption Policy Outlines :
According to the draft of the proposed National Encryption Policy ,
- Citizens may use encryption technology for storage and communication.
- Encryption algorithms and key sizes will be prescribed by the government through Notification from time to time .
This basically means that the government will determine the encryption standards for all and entities like Google and WhatsApp or I Message and these entities will have to follow the encryption standards prescribed by the Indian government. - The Policy also says specific guidelines for all citizens who use encryption services including instructions that individuals should store in plain text versions of communication for 90 days. For commons this implies that you’ll have to store your WhatsApp messages for 90 days or face action in case asked to reproduce.
Well this is a great news as finally the government is taking measures to prevent cyber attacks . Though whats difficult is that the government expects all citizens to be aware of encrypted communication and the way to store messages in plain text securely.Well a large number of users may in fact not even know that WhatsApp and iMessage use encryption.
Illegal to Delete Whats App Chat Soon for India
Stating from the draft,
[dropcap]”[/dropcap]all citizens including personnel of Government / Business (G/B) performing non-official / personal functions, are required to store the plaintexts of the corresponding encrypted information for 90 days from the date of transaction and provide the verifiable Plain Text to Law and Enforcement Agencies as and when required as per the provision of the laws of the country.[dropcap]”[/dropcap]
Even more critical Guidelines for B2B or enterprise users where data exchange is and for B2C communication ,
[dropcap]”[/dropcap]On demand, the user shall be able to reproduce the same Plain text and encrypted text pairs using the software / hardware used to produce the encrypted text from the given plain text. Such plain text information shall be stored by the user/organisation/agency for 90 days from the date of transaction and made available to Law Enforcement Agencies as and when demanded in line with the provisions of the laws of the country,[dropcap]”[/dropcap]
This clearly implies that e-commerce websites will have to keep a plain-text copy of user details leaving their information vulnerable to hackers.
The policy also mentions that Service Providers located within and outside India, using encryption technology for providing any type of services in India must enter into an agreement with the government for providing such services in India. The government will designate an appropriate agency for entering into such an agreement with the service provider located within and outside India. This means WhatsApp, Apple and Google will have to sign agreements with the Indian government to provide services in the country as they use encryption technology. This will make the process more bureaucratic and create roadblocks for app providers. In its current form the policy could have a detrimental effect on the privacy of citizens and expose sensitive data to potential abuse.
However, mass use products like SSL/TLS that are used for financial transactions are exempted from registration.
Well here is Another Point : Users in India are allowed to use only the products registered in India though. So using a service not registered with the government will be illegal.
[dropcap]”[/dropcap]Government reserves the right to take appropriate action as per Law of the country for any violation of this Policy,[dropcap]”[/dropcap]
the draft categorically states.
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