Soon after tech giant WhatsApp got into a face off with the Indian
government claiming its officials met the Indian government in the last
five months, government sources say the information provided was "pure
technical jargon".
Government sources also say that WhatsApp had given information to CERT-IN, a government agency in May, but without any mention of Pegasus or
the extent of the breach. It also insists, that the information shared
was only about a technical vulnerability and had nothing to do with the
fact that privacy of Indian users had been compromised.
To back its claim, a screenshot of the information shared with CERT-IN by WhatsApp was circulated by government sources.
Earlier, highly-placed official sources indicated a war with the
messaging platform, alleging that the whole controversy may be a ploy by
the messaging company to build pressure on governments to push back on
their demands on traceability.
"WhatsApp officials have met Indian
government in the last five months. This incident is of August.... then
why did WhatsApp not inform us that time. Looking at our demand, now
the US, UK and Australia have also raised pitch for traceability. So
this is too much of a coincidence. This could be an attempt by WhatsApp
to build pressure on countries to push back on growing global opinion
for traceability using this example," a source said.
The snooping of human rights activists and journalists in India via an
Israeli spyware called Pegasus has snowballed into a major political
controversy. Pegasus allegedly exploited WhatsApp's video calling system
with installing the spyware via giving missed calls to snoop on 1,400
select users globally, including nearly 30-40 people in India.
No comments:
Post a Comment