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Supreme Court issues notice to WhatsApp; asks why grievance officer not appointed in India?

News Nation Bureau New Delhi Updated on: 27 Aug 2018, 18:37 PM

The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to instant messaging platform WhatsApp, along with the IT and Finance Ministry, seeking a detailed report on the reason behind not appointing a grievance officer in India till the time.

"Supreme Court today issued a notice to WhatsApp, IT and Finance ministry and sought a detailed reply from them within four weeks as to why a grievance officer in India has not been appointed yet by WhatsApp," the news agency ANI reported.

Read | Building traceability would undermine end-to-end encryption: WhatsApp

The notice came days after IT and law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad dialled WhatsApp CEO Chris Daniels, asking the messaging company to immediately appoint a grievance officer in India, who will be in charge of addressing concerns over fake messages, which has allegedly triggered incidents of mob-lynching across India.

The Centre also asked WhatsApp to set up a local corporate entity and find a technology solution to trace the origin of fake messages circulated through its platform that led to a series of horrific crimes in the past few years. The messaging platform was also warned of abetment charges in case action is not taken to tackle circulation of fake messages.

Read | Mob-fury cases: WhatsApp building India team to check for fake news

Though, WhatsApp has given nod to the government's most of the demands, the social media platform will not be able to add a feature that will trace the origin of messages. According to WhatsApp, the company has no access to users' data and tampering with it may breach the privacy of the user.

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First Published : 27 Aug 2018, 14:34 PM

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