New Delhi: New Delhi yesterday, the ministry expressed its concern over anti-national elements in the country using social media apps to carry out their activities. Security agencies, Jammu and Kashmir police and senior officials of IT ministry and department of telecommunications believe WhatsApp is “the preferred medium of communication for anti-national forces.
In particular, the meeting highlighted the recent arrests of Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists, involved in the 2016 attack on the Nagrota Army camp in Jammu and Kashmir. The terrorists, responsible for the deaths of seven soldiers, reportedly told J&K police that they were receiving instructions from across the border over WhatsApp calls.
According to one official speaking to Times of India, security agencies have been struggling with monitoring apps like WhatApp. Because of its end-to-end encryption, they’re unable to crack into the service when investigating possible criminal elements. As such, he cited following the example of some Middle Eastern countries, where both WhatsApp voice and video calling are banned.
An example of some countries which included those from the Gulf was cited during the meeting where neither WhatsApp voice or video calling was allowed, they said. An official statement released said the meeting discussed effective measures to be taken by the law enforcement agencies to tackle the security challenges being posed by terrorists, militants and also individuals propagating child pornography using the social media platforms.
In June 2016, the Supreme Court had dismissed a plea seeking a ban on WhatsApp and other communication applications on security grounds. End-to-end encryption is used in all WhatsApp conversations and can be opted into in Messenger. End-to-end encrypted messages are secured with a lock and only the sender and recipient have the special key needed to unlock and read them.
