New Delhi: Bowing under intense public pressure, the Centre Tuesday withdrew its controversial draft national encryption policy under which individuals were to be mandatorily required to save their WhatsApp and other social media messages for up to three months.
“I personally feel some of the expressions used in the draft are giving rise to uncalled-for misgivings. Therefore, I have written to DeitY (department of electronics and information technology) to withdraw that draft, rework it properly and thereafter put in the public domain,” said communications minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.
As per the draft, individuals were required to save all their online and mobile data (WhatsApp messages, Google chats, BBM messages and emails, among others) for 90 days, and provide it to law enforcement agencies in “plain text” on demand.
This came under heavy criticism from netizens as an attack on the privacy of individuals. Mr Prasad said the draft National Encryption Policy was not the final view of the government.
