Centre mulls blocking WhatsApp calls in insurgency-affected areas
This issue was discussed in a meeting held in the North Block chaired by the Union home Secretary Rajiv Gauba on Monday.
Seeing the threat of rising terrorism in the country and making an effort to thwart communication between terrorists and their contacts in tempestuous areas, the government has turned its attention towards the cross-platform messaging application named WhatsApp. The home ministry is now investigating as to how it can block the WhatsApp calling service rendered by the application in order to prevent terrorist getting information from their sources.
Officials in the Home Ministry said that many a time whenever there are cross borders firing, terrorists use the WhatsApp calling feature of the application and get in touch with their associates sitting across the border.
This issue was discussed in a meeting held in the North Block chaired by the Union home Secretary Rajiv Gauba on Monday.
"WhatsApp calling and messaging has now become the preferred medium of communication for anti-national forces and we are right now clueless about keeping a tab on it. We need a policy where, when it comes to national security, these apps will be forced to share information with the security agencies," an officer said.
According to the officer, there has been a massive rise in end-to-end cipher using these applications. It means that even if the data traffic is intercepted, they face the challenge of breaking down the cipher to extract information.
Officials in the security apparatus said that it important for the Telecom Ministry and the Home Ministry to formulate a policy under which multinational mediums like Whatsaap, whose headquarters is situated in a different country, come under the eyes of the Indian Laws.
The Home ministry is under pressure as the recent arrest of the terror-related cases showcase that terrorists get information from their sources sitting across the border. This is evident when the Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists arrested by the National Investigation Agency(NIA) revealed they were directed from across the border handlers with the help of a Whatsapp call.
The attack in the army camp by Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists killed seven army men.
The NIA has taken the custody of three people arrested by the state police under the allegation of being involved in guiding terrorists which included taking them from the border to the army base camp.