The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MoCIT) will take up the issue of initiating measures for enabling the decryption of messages on internet services such as WhatsApp and Viber, with the ministries of law and home affairs, as and when specific cases requiring intervention by security agencies arise, two government officials involved in the exercise told The Indian Express on condition of anonymity. The development gains significance in the light of the WhatsApp service being blocked in Brazil on Monday after a state judge ordered the country’s five main wireless operators to block access to the app for 72 hours. Subsequently, the suspension of WhatsApp’s text message and internet voice call service was lifted after about 24 hours, when an appeals judge on Tuesday ruled in favour of an injunction by the company’s lawyers. “The Department of Electronics and Information Technology only ensures implementation of directives related to content being carried . Action from that the department only follows directives given by concerned authorities in ministries of law and home,” said one official. Last year, the Department of Electronics and Information Technology had withdrawn a draft encryption policy after a public outrage over including consumer services in its ambit. Mobile applications such as WhatsApp make use of proprietary authentication protocols to secure messages. Recently, WhatsApp had introduced end-to-end encryption for all its services, meaning that the messages could only be read by the intended recipients. On Wednesday, when asked if the government was open to the option of including these services in the policy given that security agencies are unable to decrypt the messages, Minister of Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said: "We will look into it". Also see: WhatsApp end-to-end encryption: How it works and what it means for users Officials said that currently, law enforcement agencies face difficulty while dealing with encrypted communications by various application service providers, including end to end encrypted communication message provided by WhatsApp. Security agencies are able to intercept these encrypted communication services through the lawful interception facilities provided by the telecom service providers, but they are not able to decrypt some of encrypted intercepted communication to readable format,” an official said. Watch all our video reviews In response to the Brazil court order, Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Facebook, which owns the messaging service, had called for Brazilian citizens to rally in favour of legislation that would prevent internet services from being blocked. Also see: Whatsapp: Encryption has never been available to so many people before
