Cong slams govt over new IT rules

NEW DELHI The Centre’s new information technology rules that forced Facebook Inc’s messaging platform Whatsapp to petition the Delhi high court are aimed at asphyxiating democracy and curbing dissent, the Congress said on Wednesday.

The new rules are “dire, drastic and draconian”, Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi said at an online media briefing on Wednesday as he sought to scale up the offensive against the rules that were notified three months earlier in February but came into effect at midnight.

“The issuance of the new intermediary guidelines reflect the BJP government’s syndrome, which is a ‘Big Daddy syndrome’. It is a control freak syndrome….

You would make the North Korean model of control of the media blush,” Singhvi said.

The Congress’ harshlyworded criticism of the rules comes hours after Whatsapp confirmed that it had approached the Delhi high court against provisions in the rules that require it to ensure that it can trace the origin of messages.

“Requiring messaging apps to “trace” chats is the equivalent of asking us to keep a fingerprint of every single message sent on Whatsapp, which would break end-to-end encryption and fundamentally undermines people’s right to privacy,” the Whatsapp spokesperson said.

Whatsapp has asked the

Delhi high court to scrap the traceability provision as it is “unconstitutional”, “illegal” and constitutes a “dangerous invasion of privacy”.

In a blog, Whatsapp said some governments were seeking to force technology companies to find out who sent a particular message on private messaging services.

It said providing traceability for messages would break the end-to-end encryption and would severely undermine the privacy of billions of people who communicate digitally.

“Then, what is the point of end-to-end encryption… It is like a camera in your drawing room or bedroom,” said Singhvi.

Issuance of the new rules reflect BJP govt’s syndrome, which is a ‘Big Daddy syndrome’. It is a control freak syndrome...

Congress leader