The Centre today said that it will examine the charge against WhatsApp of allegedly accessing the microphone of users' devices without their knowledge.
"India Amid Charge Of WhatsApp Using Mics Without Consent," tweeted Union Minister of Electronics and Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
This is an unacceptable breach n violation of #Privacy
— Rajeev Chandrasekhar 🇮🇳 (@Rajeev_GoI) May 10, 2023
We will be examinig this immdtly and will act on any violation of privacy even as new Digital Personal Data protection bill #DPDP is being readied.@GoI_MeitY @_DigitalIndia https://t.co/vtFrST4bKP
Shivnath Thukral, Director and Head of India Public Policy, Meta, have responded to the minister's query in a tweet by stating it's a bug on Android. Voice notes and calls are protected by end to end encryption.
Sir, pls see our response: we believe this is a bug on Android, Google has said they are looking into it. Your calls and voice notes are protected by end-to-end encryption so we cannot hear the microphone in any case. We're aligned on safeguarding privacy. https://t.co/4L8b89yzRI
— Shivnath Thukral (@shivithukral) May 10, 2023
Earlier this week, a Twitter engineer claimed that WhatsApp had been using his microphone in the background while he was asleep.
Foad Dabiri, Director of Engineering at Twitter, shared screenshots of the app usage and questioned, "What's going on?" Several users in the comments section claimed of facing similar problems.
WhatsApp has been using the microphone in the background, while I was asleep and since I woke up at 6AM (and that's just a part of the timeline!) What's going on? pic.twitter.com/pNIfe4VlHV
— Foad Dabiri (@foaddabiri) May 6, 2023
Sharing the engineer's tweet, Twitter CEO Elon Musk hinted that WhatsApp cannot be trusted.
"Trust Nothing, Not even nothing," Mr Musk tweeted.
The Indian government has taken cognizance of the incident against WhatsApp and said that they will probe the charges. Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that the government will immediately act upon any violation of privacy.
"This is an unacceptable breach n violation of Privacy. We will be examining this immdtly and will act on any violation of privacy even as new Digital Personal Data protection bill DPDP is being readied (sic)," the Union Minister of State for Electronics and Technology tweeted.
This is an unacceptable breach n violation of #Privacy
— Rajeev Chandrasekhar 🇮🇳 (@Rajeev_GoI) May 10, 2023
We will be examinig this immdtly and will act on any violation of privacy even as new Digital Personal Data protection bill #DPDP is being readied.@GoI_MeitY @_DigitalIndia https://t.co/vtFrST4bKP
WhatsApp has dismissed the claim and said that users have full control of their mic settings. In its clarification, the app said that the issue arose due to a bug in Android that 'misattributes information in their privacy dashboard'.
WhatsApp said they have asked Google to investigate.
Separately, WhatsApp users in India have reported a massive surge in incoming international spam calls over the past few days. Many users complained on Twitter that a major chunk of these spam calls had country codes belonging to Indonesia (+62), Vietnam (+84), Malaysia (+60), Kenya (+254) and Ethiopia (+251).
WhatsApp remains the most popular instant messaging app that uses end-to-end encryption to protect the content of the messages from being read by anyone else.
Moreover, WhatsApp has faced some privacy issues in the past, such as: Sharing some user data with its parent company Meta such as your phone number, device information, location, and contacts.
Signal and Telegram claim to offer more privacy to users.
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