The government sought explanation from WhatsApp and other messaging platforms on the username feature, given the “serious” possibilities of impersonation and cybercrime, IT Secretary S Krishnan said on Friday. <\/p>\n
The comment assumes significance as the government has shot-off notices this week questioning WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal about the username feature – a facility that essentially allows people on the messaging platform to communicate without sharing their phone numbers. <\/p>\n
Within days of announcing plans to introduce the username feature, Meta-owned WhatsApp was served notice by the government asking why action should not be initiated under the IT Act and related rules; Centre also sought detailed information and directed WhatsApp to pause the feature until all consultations are completed “to the satisfaction of the government”. <\/p>\n
Telegram and Signal – which already have the username feature operational – also got notices, subsequently. While WhatsApp has 50 crore users in India, Telegram’s reach is a fraction of that. <\/p>\n
“We have taken up the issue of usernames because there is a serious possibility of impersonation and the kind of encouragement or facility it provides for committing more cybercrimes. It is a very serious issue,” Krishnan said on the sidelines of a CII Cybersecurity summit. <\/p>\n
The Supreme Court in a case relating to digital arrest has taken up the matter, he said adding that the username feature “is another dimension of the way cybercrimes can be committed”. <\/p>\n
“…which is the reason why we have directed WhatsApp to explain why they have this feature and likewise similarly we have sought explanation from others,” Krishnan added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The government sought explanation from WhatsApp and other messaging platforms on the username feature, given the “serious” possibilities of impersonation and cybercrime, IT Secretary S Krishnan said on Friday. The comment assumes significance as the government has shot-off notices this week questioning WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal about the username feature – a facility that essentially allows people on the messaging platform to communicate without sharing their phone numbers. Within days of announcing plans to introduce the username feature, Meta-owned WhatsApp was served notice by the government asking why action should not be initiated under the IT Act and related rules; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1018777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-telecom"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1018777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1018784,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018777\/revisions\/1018784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1018777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1018777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1018777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}