Indian Minister of IT announces investigation into WhatsApp privacy breach

• ByStartupStory     |    May 12, 2023

India’s Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, has announced that the government will investigate allegations that WhatsApp accessed users’ microphones while their phones were not in use. The minister revealed in a tweet that the probe would be conducted, even as the country prepares to introduce a new Digital Personal Data Protection Bill. The investigation follows claims that WhatsApp accessed the microphone of a user while they were sleeping, which has led to concerns over privacy breaches.

An engineering director at Twitter, Foad Dabiri, claimed on Saturday that “WhatsApp accessed his microphone while I was sleeping”. This tweet went viral, garnering over 65 million views. Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, responded to the tweet and stated that “this is an unacceptable breach and violation of privacy”. He added, that “the government will investigate the claim immediately and take action on any violation of privacy, even as the new Digital Personal Data Protection bill is being prepared”.

WhatsApp has responded to allegations that it accessed a Twitter engineer’s microphone in the background while he was asleep, stating that it is a bug on Android that misattributes information in the privacy dashboard. The company has been in touch with the engineer over the last 24 hours and has asked Google to investigate and resolve the issue. WhatsApp has also emphasised that users have complete control over their microphone settings.

According to a tweet by WhatsApp, the microphone on the app is only accessed when a user is making a call or recording a voice note or video, and is protected by end-to-end encryption. WhatsApp has been in contact with the Twitter engineer who raised concerns, and has requested that Google investigate and address the issue which is believed to be a bug on Android. Despite this, several users, including Elon Musk, have expressed concerns after an engineer working with Twitter shared screenshots of his phone showing that WhatsApp accessed his microphone while he was asleep.

Elon Musk tweeted his concerns on the screenshot shared by Dabiri, stating that “WhatsApp cannot be trusted.” He also mentioned the founders of WhatsApp leaving Facebook in disgust and starting a campaign to delete Facebook, contributing significantly to the creation of Signal. The messaging app has been facing scrutiny in India for multiple issues. In October 2020, WhatsApp faced a two-hour service disruption, which prompted the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to ask for an explanation.

Over the past few days, Indian WhatsApp users have reported a significant increase in the number of incoming international spam calls, with many complaints posted on Twitter. The spam calls were found to have country codes of Indonesia (+62), Vietnam (+84), Malaysia (+60), Kenya (+254), and Ethiopia (+251).

T-Hub, India’s prominent innovation ecosystem, has joined hands with Collins Aerospace, a leading company in the aerospace and defense sector, as part of the Powered by Collins program. The partnership intends to promote technological innovation with Deep Tech small and medium-sized businesses. The Hyderabad-based T-Hub has released a statement announcing the collaboration.

T-Hub has been designated as the inaugural Activation Site in the partnership, which is awarded each year by the Powered by Collins program to a top global startup accelerator that promotes outreach and interaction in a particular ecosystem. The collaboration aims to provide excellent funding and collaboration prospects for startups and scaleups from around the world, leveraging the expertise of Collins Aerospace and T-Hub, the world’s largest innovation campus, to achieve the project’s objectives.

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