The All India Professionals’ Congress, a unit of the Congress party, registered its protests to the government’s proposal to mandate social media companies to trace messages back to the originator and assist law-enforcement or take down content without a judicial order, calling it violative of the fundamental rights to privacy and freedom of expression.
The provision to ask social media companies to assist law enforcement via an executive order, it said, “helps the government silence anyone on social media”. Safeguards need to be built in by making this subject to judicial approval, it said.
“If required, a special judicial authority may be set up for this purpose. The UK has also set up a commission independent of the executive for this purpose,” said the unit, which claims to be India’s first political platform for working professionals and entrepreneurs.
The government’s intent to enable traceability is targeted at WhatsApp. The end-to-end encryption policy of the Facebook-owned messaging app has been a bone of contention as it restricts the ability of law-enforcement to trace the originator of false news or rumours.
The All India Professionals’ Congress said each order to trace the originator must be in writing, giving reasons, and must be backed by the approval of a court or appropriate judicial authority.
On the amendment to take-down requests, it said the government must take judicial approval. It, however, added that the words ‘morality’ and ‘decency’ must be struck out the draft language as neither the government nor a court can decide what is decent or what is moral as it is a question of individual taste.
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