Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has been discussing India’s financial reforms and future roadmap with Lok Sabha parliamentarians in New Delhi. This week, she defended a provision within the Earnings Tax Invoice, 2025, that grants tax authorities entry to WhatsApp messages and emails to trace tax evaders and monetary criminals. She cited a current case the place decrypting WhatsApp messages led to the seizure of over Rs. 90 crore in crypto belongings from a syndicate.
Sitharaman warned that encrypted communication channels are being misused for monetary crimes like cash laundering and tax evasion. Talking in Parliament, she famous that whereas people and companies could keep clear handbook ledgers, they nonetheless exploit digital platforms to commit monetary offenses.
Backing the controversial provision within the new Earnings Tax Invoice, she mentioned, “The 1961 Earnings Tax Act mentions bodily books of account, ledgers, and handbook information however doesn’t deal with digital information. This creates rivalry, as people could query why their digital information are required regardless of exhibiting bodily ledgers. The brand new invoice goals to handle this hole.”
The FM revealed that Rs. 250 crore in unaccounted funds was uncovered by way of the scanning of encrypted messages and cellphones.
She added that “WhatsApp communications revealing syndicates concerned in bogus payments value Rs. 200 crores, and cases the place capital positive aspects on land gross sales had been manipulated utilizing false paperwork, lowering Rs. 150 crores to Rs. 2 crores. Skilled teams on WhatsApp have additionally been implicated. Google Maps historical past has been used to find hideouts containing money and unaccounted transactions, whereas Instagram accounts helped set up possession of high-priced autos linked to benami properties.”
To this point, Google and Instagram haven’t commented on the event.
Sitharaman didn’t specify the timeline for tracing, figuring out, and seizing these funds. Her deal with additionally lacked particulars on the confiscated crypto belongings. It stays unclear whether or not WhatsApp’s encryption was straight bypassed or if chats had been accessed from seized units throughout investigations.
WhatsApp’s Stance on Breaking Encryption
WhatsApp, owned by Meta, has maintained that its end-to-end encryption retains messages between its customers fully non-public.
“Finish-to-end encryption retains your private messages and calls between you and the individual you are speaking with. Nobody outdoors of the chat, not even WhatsApp, can learn, hearken to, or share them. It’s because with end-to-end encryption, your messages are secured with a lock, and solely the recipient and you’ve got the particular key wanted to unlock and browse them,” claims the messaging app that has an estimated world userbase of round three billion.
Will Cathcart, the Head of WhatsApp at Meta has additionally beforehand defined the platform’s stance on breaking encryption.
The actual fact stays that scanning everybody’s messages would destroy privateness as we all know it. That was as true final yr as it’s immediately. @WhatsApp won’t ever break our encryption and stays vigilant in opposition to threats to take action. https://t.co/iHsBOhkp8r
— Will Cathcart (@wcathcart) September 6, 2023
WhatsApp declined Devices 360’s request to touch upon the Finance Minister’s remarks. The platform has additionally not commented on India’s new Earnings Tax Invoice, 2025, which grants tax authorities entry to personal communications.
The US-based messaging app has lengthy been at odds with the Indian authorities over encryption insurance policies. In 2021, it challenged a MeitY guideline requiring social media platforms to determine the primary originator of messages, as mandated by the Info Know-how (Middleman Pointers and Digital Media Ethics Code) Guidelines, 2021.
In April final yr, WhatsApp informed the Delhi Excessive Courtroom that if compelled to interrupt its encryption in India, it might take into account exit the market.
