India threatens jail for Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter employees

The threats are an increase in India’s efforts to put American technology companies under pressure, at a time when the companies want to see the next population country in the world for growth in the coming years.

Some of the government’s requests for data relate to WhatsApp, which is hugely popular in India and which promises users encrypted communications, which cannot be read by outside parties.

A WhatsApp spokesman said the company complied with data requests that “comply with internationally recognized standards, including human rights, due process and the rule of law.” A Facebook spokesman said the company “is responding to government requests for data in accordance with applicable law and our terms of service.”

A spokesman for the company, Twitter, will continue to advocate for the fundamentals of the open Internet, adding: “Threats against these principles are increasing around the world, which is very worrying.”

A spokesman for the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology did not respond to requests for comment.

India has made new rules that give its leaders the power over online discourse to an extent unmatched elsewhere among public communities, legal analysts say.

The rules require technology companies to appoint managers residing in India to handle government requests, including a contact person for a “24×7 coordination with law enforcement agencies and officials to ensure compliance with the orders”.

The rules would also force companies to remove content that undermines national security, public order and ‘decency or morality’.

Some companies, such as WhatsApp, should also help identify the origin of messages. A government representative said the rules of platforms are required to locate and store records of specific messages while traveling between users.

“In a way, you will know whether a message goes viral or not,” Rakesh Maheshwari, the director of cyber law at India’s IT ministry, said on Thursday in a Zoom forum hosted by an Indian Internet Trade Association.

Greg Nojeim, senior board member of the Center for Democracy and Technology Brainstorming in Washington, D.C., said that WhatsApp guidelines require archiving what each user shares, depriving them of the absolute privacy provided by end-to-end encryption , one of the years long app, is available. user benefits.

“One large country, by adopting and enforcing these rules, could make major messaging platforms around the world pull out or not offer encrypted services,” he said. Nojeim said.

Legal observers say the rules do not provide a clear legal way to challenge requests to remove content or provide user data. According to India’s legal system, such requests do not require prior approval by a court.

In addition to the risk of arrests, compliance would also threaten the future of technology companies in a market of more than 1.3 billion people, which is the key to their global growth as they are outside China.

Facebook and WhatsApp have more users in India than in any other country. Facebook said last year that it would spend $ 5.7 billion on a new partnership with an Indian telecommunications operator to expand its country’s largest foreign investment. India is also Twitter’s fastest growing market worldwide and very important for its expansion as growth slows in more developed countries.

The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already shown that it is prepared to block popular social media platforms, and last year banned TikTok, which had a much larger user base than Twitter, amid tensions with China.

Twitter has blocked, unblocked and re-blocked hundreds of accounts in India over the past few weeks for posting material that the Indian government considers inflammatory. The company said it refuses to take down other accounts despite government orders.

According to the most recent statistics released by Google, Facebook and Twitter, the companies regularly refuse Indian removal and user data requests. Facebook platforms fulfilled half of the government’s orders for user data, Google with 58% and Twitter with 1%, which is much lower than the global average of the companies. Resistance to future requests may violate the law.

The Indian government appears to be ready for a fight. Delhi police, reporting to the country’s Interior Ministry, have arrested Indians who allegedly collaborated with Zoomers, WhatsApp and Google documents with foreigners on a “toolkit” for social media, in support of the protesting farmers. Police said the creation and promotion of the winning page amounts to sedition.

All three companies declined to comment on government requests regarding the incident. News Corp.,

owner of Dow Jones & Co., Wall Street Journal publisher, has a commercial agreement to provide news via Facebook. Dow Jones has a commercial agreement to deliver video content via Twitter.

A judge last month released one of the activists on bail and attributed the charges against her to ‘the wounded vanity of the government’. The arrests nevertheless serve as a warning to both Indian dissidents and foreign technology platforms, said Mo Dhaliwal, co-founder of the Poetic Justice Foundation, a Canadian non-profit organization that created the initial version of the toolkit.

“They are sending signals to anyone who would dare to organize or communicate that ‘if you do it again, we will find you,'” he said. Dhaliwal said.

The growing pressure has let technology companies down, says Jason Pielemeier, policy director of the Global Network Initiative, a group focused on online human rights and privacy funded in part by technology companies.

“In a market of such a large India, it is difficult to use the core option, that is to say, ‘We are not going to comply with it, and if you block us, we will call you bluff or accept the consequences,'” he said. said.

Mr. Pielemeier compares the demands of the Indian government regarding content, privacy and access to data with the Chinese government in front of major internet platforms in the country.

The Indian government painted the platforms as part of a conspiracy, he said, adding: “The big difference between past history and where we are now is that China has done well without those companies.”

The Indian government has been asked in recent years about tightening restrictions on U.S. technology companies and has said it welcomes U.S. companies but must comply with Indian regulations. Officials said the government wanted to protect small Indian businesses, secure user data and provide space for India’s own technological enterprises.

Write to Jeff Horwitz at [email protected] and Newley Purnell at [email protected]