Apex court dismisses plea seeking ban on WhatsApp

New Delhi: Here’s some good news for the WhatsApp users. The apex court on Wednesday morning has dismissed a petition seeking a ban on the messaging app. Sudhir Yadav, a Haryana based RTI activist sought a ban on WhatsApp on the grounds that the ‘platform’s end-to-end encryption gives terrorists a means to communicate that is impossible to intercept’. According to the petition, the 256 bit encryption started by WhatsApp in the month of April this year, cannot be broken into. This can benefit terrorists and other illegal groups to communicate without being traced. “Even if WhatsApp was asked to break through an individual’s message to hand over the data to the government, it too would fail as it does not have the de-cryption keys either,” Yadav said in his petition. The Supreme Court asked the petitioner to approach Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) regarding the same. The petition also demanded a ban on other messaging apps using high encryption like Viber, Secure Chat, Hike, Telegram and Signal for aiding and abetting terrorists