The government of India is toying with the idea of implementing a new policy which will make the deleting of messages on encrypted messaging services such as WhatsApp, Google Hangouts or Apple’s iMessage a punishable offence. The government has proposed the National Encryption Policy in which the mobile phone users will have to keep a copy of all the messages from their instant messaging apps for 90 days.
The proposed National Encryption Policy (NEP), which was prepared by the experts at the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) under the union ministry of communications and IT, will even ask the online businesses to save sensitive information of the users including passwords in plain text form, which might lead to the impending threat of hackers getting access to all the private information. The NEP policy draft has been published online by the government to know the feedback from netizens and companies.
The new policy allows the government to determine the encryption standards, which even online business giants like WhatsApp and Google must follow. The proposed National Encryption Policy reads, “all citizens including personnel of Government / Business (G/B) performing non-official / personal functions, are required to store the plain texts of the corresponding encrypted information for 90 days from the date of transaction and provide the verifiable Plain Text to Law and Enforcement Agencies as and when required as per the provision of the laws of the country.”
Already, there has been an increasing dissent over the centre’s new move in the name of security efficiency. Netizens who have an issue with the new policy or even have a suggestions on the NEP draft policy can mail their reactions to akrishnan@deity.gov.in by October 16.