Indian IT Norms To Make It Mandatory For Internet Firms To Provide Traceability Of Messages And Their Originators

The Indian government plans to amend Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011, which were notified under Section 79 of the IT Act to make it mandatory for social media and internet companies to provide traceability of messages as well as originators of these messages or those posting them.

According to junior Minister for Information Technology Sanjay Dhotre who told Rajya Sabha about the proposed amendments, IT intermediaries like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Google and TikTok would have to remove malicious content within 24 hours upon receiving a court order, or when notified by the government.

The key features of the proposed amendments include having intermediaries periodically inform their users to comply with rules, and follow users’ agreement and privacy policy.

Facebook and its instant messenger WhatsApp have been resisting the Indian government’s long pending demand on traceability, arguing that doing so would undermine its policy on privacy and end-to-end encryption.

Facebook global executive Nick Clegg who met Union IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in September had proposed alternatives to absolute traceability of messages, including the use of ‘meta data’ and machine intelligence for dealing with the issue.

He had even offering to harness WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook linkages to provide assistance to law enforcement agencies.

However, Prasad has been stubborn in his demand that the company provide details of people behind nefarious messages and fake news to law enforcement agencies.

Among the other amendments that the Indian government plans to make to the rules governing intermediaries is making it mandatory for companies with more than 50 lakh users to have an office in India as well as appoint their nodal officers in India for liaising with Indian law enforcement agencies.

Incidentally, the traceability clause has emerged as a major bone of contention between governments and privacy advocates.

In October, more than 100 civil society organizations including Electronic Frontier Foundation, Digital Rights Watch and Access Now requested Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg to not yield to demands by governments of the US, the UK and Australia to provide them backdoor access to all encrypted messages sent on all its platforms.

The Indian government has tried to assuage such fears by reiterating that the traceability clause will be used to trace the origin of messages linked to unlawful activities and doesn't want any of the social media companies to break or lower encryption standards.

However, privacy advocates don’t seem convinced and have been demanding stronger legal frameworks to ensure such powers are used for bonafide reasons only and are not misused to target dissenters.

Early this year, human rights organisation Amnesty International had slammed the government for enforcing traceability on social media companies warning that forcing companies to weaken encryption will affect all users’ online privacy.