The Silicon Review ^Asia

The Indian government has requested WhatsApp many times in the past to come up with a solution that would allow the government to trace the origin of a message. The social media giant owned by Facebook, however, has kept denying the plea as doing so would compromise end-to-end encryption that keeps the messages on WhatsApp private and protects the contents of messages shared on its platform.

Recently, the Indian government again demanded message traceability from WhatsApp. However, the company maintains its stand on its decision and said that it has nothing new to say regarding the matter. Reacting to a report by the Economics Times which states that government has once again raised the matter, a WhatsApp spokesperson said, "We have nothing new to add to what we have previously said on this."

There have been many cases in which fake news have led to cases of mob lynching, unnecessary anger and tension, and other violent activities in the past. As per the report by ET, the Indian government has asked WhatsApp to devise a solution that would add a digital fingerprint to every message sent using the platform without compromising on its end-to-end encryption. This would help the government to curb digital crimes as the government would be able to trace the origin of any problematic message, and check how many people have read it or forwarded it

At present, WhatsApp doesn’t keep a track of the messages shared on its platform and to address to the demand of the government, it would have to redesign the entire platform to make the necessary changes.