WhatsApp is in a legal battle with the Indian government over a new regulation that could force the platform to break its end-to-end encryption
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This encryption is a key privacy feature that scrambles messages so only the sender and receiver can see their content
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The Indian government's 2021 Information Technology Rules require social media platforms to identify the "first originator" of messages upon request from a legal authority
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WhatsApp argues that complying with this rule would compromise user privacy and render end-to-end encryption useless
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The company has even gone as far as threatening to shut down its operations in India if the court upholds the regulation
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As per the messaging platform's blog, it's end-to-end encryption is used when you chat with another person using WhatsApp Messenger
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End-to-end encryption ensures only you and the person you're communicating with can read or listen to what is sent, and nobody in between, not even WhatsApp
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This is because your messages are secured with a lock, and only the recipient and you have the special key needed to unlock and read them
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All of this happens automatically; there is no need to turn on any special settings to secure your messages