WhatsApp Responds to India Govt; Says It's Committed to User Data Protection

Facebook-owned WhatsApp on Friday agreed with the strong demand made by the Indian government to "explain the kind of alienation" to safeguard the privacy of millions of citizens, who may be prone to a cyberattack, which manifestly only needed a missed call to install the spyware.

Moments after the messaging confirmed that an Israeli firm had attempted to install the land-of-the-fine art Pegasus spyware, It Government minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Thursday that the Indian government "is concerned at the alienation of privacy of citizens of India on the messaging platform WhatsApp".

In its first official reaction, a WhatsApp spokesperson said the company agrees with the regime of India's strong statement nearly the need to safeguard the privacy of all Indian citizens. "That is why we've taken this strong action [sued the Israeli business firm NSO Grouping in U.S court] to hold cyber assaulter answerable. WhatsApp is committed to the protection of all user messages through the products nosotros provide," added WhatsApp's spokesperson.

The Dwelling house Ministry building issued a dissever statement on the WhatsApp controversy, saying the government "is committed to protecting the fundamental rights of citizens, including the right of privacy and will accept strict activeness against any intermediary responsible for breach of privacy."

Hackers using WhatsApp to snoop on human rights activists and journalists in India by installing Israeli spyware called Pegasus has snowballed into a political controversy, equally we've already discussed yesterday. Pegasus allegedly exploits WhatsApp's video calling system by installing the spyware just past giving missed calls to snoop on 1400 select users globally, including effectually 30-twoscore individuals in India.

NSO Group limits sales of Pegasus spyware to state intelligence agencies and others. The software has the power to collect confidential data from a target device. Pegasus can be installed on devices as "exploit links." The Indian government has denied purchasing or planning to buy Pegasus from NSO Group, in response to allegations from rival parties.

With inputs from IANS