The Supreme Court today dismissed a PIL urging it to ask the government to seek the private key from WhatsApp and similar applications to access their contents in times of need.

The Supreme Court next Wednesday will hear a petition seeking a ban on WhatsApp on the ground that the messaging platform’s end-to-end encryption gives terrorists a means of communication that is impossible to intercept.

“)When the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) published the Draft National Encryption Policy last week, it probably did not expect to have it withdrawn in just a few days’ time. After facing a seething attack from all quarters, the IT Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, announced that the draft policy was not the government’s final view, and a revised policy would soon be published.

The Indian Government attacked BlackBerry’s manufacturer for providing encryption services that would prevent security services from reading potential terrorists’ emails. One year on and the Indian rules surrounding encryption are still a legal quagmire, explains Salman Waris.