The Supreme Court dismissed a public interest litigation that sought a ban on the messaging service WhatsApp on allegations of violation of privacy, integrity, and security standards. The petition claimed that the messaging platform did not meet the principles of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, and thereby posed an immense risk to the fundamental rights of its users along with national security.
A bench comprising Justices M M Sundresh and Aravind Kumar declined to entertain a plea filed by Omanakuttan K.G., a Kerala-based software engineer. Omanakuttan’s PIL questioned the vulnerabilities in WhatsApp’s Android application for allowing unauthorized changes in media files. This, the PIL further argued, would become a possible avenue for undermining even those persons who are not as technically adept-the privacy, integrity, and security of their communications.
The petitioner further stated that “operations of WhatsApp violate fundamental rights” of citizens under Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to life and personal liberty. He further apprehends national security, demanding this court to direct the central government to ban the said platform if it could not comply with IT regulations.
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This is the first time Omanakuttan has approached the courts raising the issue. Last year, he had filed a similar plea in the Kerala High Court which was dismissed as “premature”. The 2021 plea also pleaded enforcement of WhatsApp’s compliance with the IT Rules, 2021 which mandate tracing the origin of messages for social media intermediaries.
WhatsApp has also opposed this traceability requirement and, in a plea that followed before the Delhi High Court, argued that it would be against the privacy of the user and also against the principle of end-to-end encryption.
The dismissal by the Supreme Court of the latest plea surely shows its unwillingness to interfere with the debate on the IT Rules and the operations of social media platforms.
Perhaps because the petitioner’s anxieties constitute potential weaknesses, it is another case of the apex court once more returning its verdict for what has now come to be branded as the judicial mantra that problems of non-compliance with regulations shall be better addressed through administrative measures or existing litigation, such as what WhatsApp is doing in challenging the IT Rules before the Delhi High Court.
This judgment, again, highlights the challenges of achieving a delicate balance between user privacy and national security in an era when regulatory compliance has become an indispensable requirement.
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