After furore over national encryption policy, Government exempts WhatsApp and social media messages from purview

Hours after proposing a draft policy that makes deleting of WhatsApp messages illegal in the country, the Government seems to have realized its mistake, and has quickly reacted to add a clarification that the proposed encryption policy will not apply to social media.

The clarification came soon after Twitteratis reacted in anger to the proposed policy, which mandated that users will have to store their WhatsApp messages for a period of 90 days, and present it to the law enforcement agencies when asked to.

The Government has clarified that mass use encryption products, which are currently being used in web applications, social media sites, and social media applications such as Whatsapp,Facebook,Twitter etc, will be exempt from the purview of the national encryption policy. In addition, SSL/TLS encryption products being used in Internet-banking and payment
gateways as directed by the Reserve Bank of India, and SSL/TLS encryption products being used for e-commerce and password based transactions, will also be exempt.

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Preserve your WhatsApp messages for 90 days, says India’s new Draft National Encryption Policy